Collection of oil mist using a baffle plate-type mist trap

Abstract

In the field of metal cutting, the cutting oil scatters in air as a microscale oil mist, which adversely affects the work environment. A baffle plate-type mist trap was manufactured as simple equipment for collecting oil mist floating in air. The oil mist collection rate and pressure loss were determined using experiments and numerical simulations while varying the number of baffle plates and inflow velocity of air. The experimental results showed that the pressure drop increased with the number of baffle plates, whereas the oil mist collection rate improved. It was also clarified that larger particles can be collected as the number of baffle plates increased. Numerical simulations showed that a high amount of oil mist was trapped upstream of the second baffle plate, and the baffle plate placed further downstream had minimal contribution to oil mist collection. In both the experiments and numerical simulations, the oil mist collection efficiency was the highest when six baffle plates were arranged. This is because the pressure drop increases depending on the number of baffle plates, whereas the mist collection rate is almost constant when many baffle plates are placed.