Dear Jerry,

I understand that you have some pneumatic conveying installations for nylon pellets operating.

Your question if the pellets could be tested for their pneumatic conveying parameters requires at least a pneumatic conveying test installation and the money that goes with it.

However, the most suitable test rigs are your own installations.

First of all, the installation must be without defects s.a. leaking pipes and worn out rotary valve feeders. Knowing the right parameters would not help under these circumstances.

Then, you have to gather the operational data from those installations.

-Material/particle density

-Bulk density

-Particle size

-Pipe geometry

-Compressor data

-Conveying capacity at measured pressure

From these data, the calculation algorithm is used to calculate back the conveying parameters.

The obtained parameters are then used to calculate the effects of installation changes.

However, the calculated parameters are not always constant but a function of the SLR and the Re-number.

The velocity slip is calculated with the algorithm at the basis of acceleration by the relative velocities, gas pressure, friction deceleration, flow direction (up, horizontal or down).

If you can let us know the already available information, I can give it a try.

Have a nice day

Teus ■

Jerry,

I agree that a test on your own conveying system will give you the best results, but if you don't have these facilities, you can go to an outside test lab to get the design data. You will have to send enough material for the tests. The cost of these tests, based on my experience, is about $3000. Most of the well known pneumatic conveying vendors have such test facilities. You should contact them for running these tests.

Regards,

Amrit Agarwal

Consulting Engineer

Pneumatic Conveying Consulting

email: polypcc@aol.com ■

Testing of Pellet Characteristics

Testing of Pellet Characteristics for Pneumatic Conveying

Is there a company that will test our Nylon Pellets to determine the pneumatic conveying parameters?

I have created the Excel spreadsheet using Mr. Agarwal's article to allow us to analize the capacity of our convey system and predict pressure drop based on system changes.[B] I am having difficulty correlating my test data to the model parameters due to extreme variability in the test data. Ie, some rotary feeders have more leaks than others, some piping is damaged, etc.[/B

]I would like to have the K value determined, solids to air velocity slip ratio and the minimum Saltation Velocity for my pellets.

Jerry Fitzgerald

Ascend Performance Materials

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Jerry,

I have already replied to your first question on companies who can test Nylon pellets for conveying parameters.

For the second question I would be glad to help you in co-relating your test data with the calculations based on my article. For this I will need details of your test set-up and system design

For the third question, I can give you the K value for Nylon pellets based upon my data bank, the solids to air ratio, and the minimum conveying velocity.

Regards,

Amrit Agarwal

Consulting Engineer

Pneumatic Conveying Consulting

Email: polypcc@aol.com ■