(311d) Performance Evaluation of Vacuum and Positive Pressure System for Dilute Phase Pneumatic Conveying of Barium Sulfate

In this work, conveying line size of 3 inch and 4 inch and conveying length of 125 ft were used to evaluate the performances of vacuum and positive pressure system for dilute phase pneumatic conveying of barium sulfate. The conveying performances were analyzed for different pickup velocities ranging from 3000 FPM to 7000 FPM by varying the blower speed while parameters such as, pipe length, pipe diameter, number and type of elbows, type of airlock valve and PD blower were kept constant. The pressure drop and the mass flow rates recorded during experiments were used to develop the phase diagram for pressure and vacuum mode dilute phase conveying. The solid fraction ratios for all experiments were calculated based on the experimental pressure drop, solid loading ratio and pickup velocities in the pipeline. The results obtained from the experiments helped in determination of the optimum pickup velocity and energy consumption for vacuum and positive pressure system.