Effect of Particle Properties on Fluidized Powder Conveying in a Horizontal Channel

Abstract

This study experimentally investigated the dense phase pneumatic conveying in a horizontal rectangular channel using the fluidizing air. The powder used the glass beads belongs to Geldart B particle, where the mean particle diameter is 127μm, the particle density is 2623kg/m3 and the minimum fluidizing velocity is 12.3mm/s. The experimental device consists of a powder discharge vessel, a horizontal rectangular channel at the side of vessel and the air supply section at the bottom of the vessel and the horizontal channel. The powder was fluidized by air through the porous membrane of the air supply section at the bottom of the vessel and the horizontal channel. Then, this system can be conveyed the fluidized powder. As the result, we confirmed the requirement that the fluidizing air to the bottom of the powder discharge vessel was required to the powder conveying of this system, and that the fluidizing velocity at the bottom of the horizontal channel was larger than that of the minimum fluidizing velocity. This result means that the fluidizing velocity at the bottom of the vessel and the horizontal channel is important to obtain the stable powder conveying. The mass flow rate and solid loading ratio were estimated by the measured data of the mass of transported powder. In addition, these results were compared with the conveying characteristic of the glass beads of 53μm belongs to Geldart A particle. Then, the mass flow rate of Geldart A particle was higher than that of Geldart B particle. The solid loading ratio of the Geldart A particle was also greatly large to that of Geldart B particle. Therefore, we considered that the high conveying efficiency to Geldart A particle was obtained, when the dimensionless fluidizing velocities at the bottom of the powder discharge vessel and the horizontal channel were same condition.