Multi-scale analysis on particle fluctuation velocity near the minimum pressure drop in a horizontal pneumatic conveying

Multi-scale characteristics of particle fluctuation velocity at the MPD (minimum pressure drop) air velocity in the acceleration and fully-developed regimes are experimentally investigated. The high-speed particle image velocimetry (PIV) is first used to measure the fluctuating particle velocities at the MPD air velocity in a horizontal pneumatic conveying. Then the fluctuating particle velocities in the acceleration and fully-developed regimes are analyzed by the continuous wavelet transform and orthogonal wavelet multi-resolution technique. It is found that the wavelet components of low frequency dominate the fluctuating energy of axial particle velocity in the bottom part of the pipe, and contribute about 70% and 84% to the acceleration and fully-developed regimes, respectively. The more contribution to the fluctuating energy of vertical particle velocity, however, comes from the wavelet components of high frequency, accounting for about 82%. The low frequency component of auto-correlation suggests a large-scale particle flow in both acceleration regime and fully-developed regime. The low frequency wavelet component also makes a large contribution to spatial correlation of axial particle velocity, which increases from the acceleration regime to fully-developed regime. The PDF of low frequency components are asymmetrical near the bottom of the pipe, but the PDF of the relatively high frequency exhibits symmetry and the spread of the PDF evidently shrinks for increasing frequencies, implying a reducing fluctuation of high frequency component.

► The multi-scale dynamics of particle velocity in a horizontal pneumatic conveying were studied.
► Particle fluctuation velocity at the minimum pressure drop was measured by the high-speed PIV.
► Intensities of fluctuation velocity, correlation and PDF were analyzed by wavelet transform.
► Low frequency components dominate fluctuating energy of particle velocity near bottom of the pipe.