Self-excited pneumatic conveying of granular particles in various horizontal curved 90° bends

• A pneumatic conveying using fins was studied in various bends.
• The pressure drop, additional pressure drop and particle velocity were measured.
• The pressure drop and conveying velocity were reduced by soft fins in the dense phase region.
• Effect of fins on the particle velocity remains in the bend.
• Particle fluctuating energy decreases with the radius ratio of bend.

The effect of using the soft fins on a horizontal pneumatic conveying of granular particles in various curved 90° bends was studied in this paper, in order to reduce pressure drop and conveying air velocity. Experimental measurements were performed in terms of the pressure drop, conveying air velocity, power consumption and additional pressure drop. The distributions of particle velocity near and in the curved 90° bend were measured by high-speed PIV. The test pipeline consisted of a 4.5 m-long horizontal straight acrylic tube, a curved 90° acrylic bend and a 1.5 m-long horizontal straight acrylic tube, having an inside diameter of 80 mm. The polyethylene particles with diameter of 2.3 mm were used as conveying materials. The superficial air velocity was varied from 10 to 14 m/s, and the solid mass flow rate was fixed at 0.45 kg/s. Comparing with the dilute phase pneumatic conveying, the pressure drop, the minimum pressure drop (MPD) velocity, power consumption and additional pressure drop can be reduced by using soft fins for various bends in lower air velocity range. The reduction becomes more evident with increasing the radius ratio of bend. The maximum reduction rates of the MPD velocity and power consumption by using soft fins is about 8.2% and 11.7%, respectively. At the upstream of bend, the particle velocity of the soft fins is evidently higher than that of the dilute phase in the bottom part of pipe for all bends. The effect of soft fins on the particle velocity and its fluctuating energy still remains in the bend and the downstream of bend, and the fluctuating energy of particle velocity gradually decreases through the bend. At the downstream of bend, the fluctuating energy of particle velocity decreases with increasing the radius ratio of bend.