(301a) Understanding the Pressure Loss in Wyes for Dust Collection and Vacuum Cleaning Systems

The wye is a common gas/solids flow element in both dust collection systems and vacuum cleaning systems. They allow the branching of systems which permits multiple pick-up points. This is especially important in dust collection systems where there can be dozens of pick up points. The literature is reasonably complete for tees and a number of particular cases of wyes. These include the cases of the following: a) a simple 90° degree tee or a symmetric wye where all branches are of equal cross section; b) one of the branches is the same diameter as the straight downstream section or “run”; c) the sum of the cross sectional areas of the branches is equal to the run cross sectional area; and d) the sum of the cross sectional area of the branch is less than that of the run. The situation of where the sum of the areas of the branches is greater than the run has not been explored adequately. In this work, we examine the latter using a combined experimental, theoretical and computational approach to calculate the pressure loss across these types of flow elements.