An analytical approach to predict pressure drop and collection efficiency of dust-load pleated filters

•Purely analytical expressions are developed to predict the life of pleated filters.•Instantaneous pressure drop and collection efficiency are predicted over time.•These expressions circumvent the need to use a computer for performance prediction.•Good agreement with experiment and CFD simulations are observed.

In this work, a series of first-principle analytical expressions are derived to predict the instantaneous pressure drop and collection efficiency of pleated filters under dust loading condition. Both the depth and surface filtration regimes are formulated for filters with triangular and rectangular pleats. The analytical expressions derived in this paper can be used in the early stages of designing a pleated filter to circumvent the need for conducting CPU-intensive numerical calculations. The predictions of our analytical expressions are compared with those reported in previous studies and good agreement is observed.