More practical advice for greener pneumatic conveying
The columnist continues a discussion about saving energy in pneumatic conveying, this time focusing on conveying line layout and bends, air boosters, and air-material separation equipment.
Even though one of a pneumatic conveying system's advantages is that the conveying line can be installed around obstacles in a plant, it's always good to route the conveying line as directly as possible between the material source and its destination with a minimum of bends. This will not only minimize air mover horsepower requirements, but limit equipment wear and material degradation. In fact, the energy loss resulting from the pressure drop after each bend is about equal to that resulting from adding another 15 to 20 feet of line to the system. Thus, a conveying line only 100 feet long but with four 90-degree bends has as much pressure drop -- that is, resistance to flow -- as a straight 180-foot-long line.