Comparison between rotation swirler and non-rotation swirler in a horizontal swirling flow pneumatic conveying

This paper proposes an application of a rotation swirler to swirling flow pneumatic conveying for reducing the conveying velocity and pressure drop decrease. A comparison with the swirling flow pneumatic conveying generated by a non-rotation swirler and axial flow pneumatic conveying was made, the total pressure drop decrease, minimum conveying velocity, energy consumption, and additional pressure drop decrease were evaluated experimentally. In addition, the cross-section profiles of the particle velocity and particle fluctuation velocity along a pipeline near the minimum pressure drop decrease were measured by the Ply (Particle Image Velocimetry) technique. The pipeline was a 5-m-long horizontal straight acrylic pipe with an inside diameter of 80 mm. Polyethylene particles of diameter of 23 mm were used as the conveying materials. The initial swirl number was varied from 0 to 0.66. The solid mass flow rates of 0.1, 0.28, and 0.47 kg/s were applied, and the superficial air velocity was varied from 9 to 16 m/s. It is revealed that the total pressure drop decrease and power consumption of the swirling flow using the rotation swirler exhibit the smallest values among all cases in the region of low air velocity, and are almost the same as the axial flow in the high air velocity region. The particle velocity and particle fluctuation velocity of the swirling flow originated by the rotation swirler are almost the same as the axial flow in the acceleration regime, but become larger than that of the axial flow near the bottom of the pipeline in the fully developed regime. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.