Analyzing design problems with your baghouse dust collection system
Can you spot and fix design problems that are affecting your dust collection system's performance? Based on over 30 years experience in diagnosing and correcting dust collection system problems, this article's author estimates that up to 90 percent of such systems installed in the US don't perform to expectations. Up to 80 percent of these problems occur in ducting and pickup hoods, and the other 20 percent are related to equipment design capacity or selection, or both.
In this article, the author presents tips for analyzing design problems with your baghouse dust collection system. [The information concentrates on systems that control fugitive dust from enclosed bulk material handling operations and operate at ambient temperatures.] Sections discuss how to make preliminary checks and measurements and how to analyze ducting and baghouse problems, with detailed information on sources of some specific baghouse problems. The final section explains how to avoid design problems by using a systems engineering approach.