Smooth Flow: Solving Soap Noodle Snags with Pneumatic Precision

The Client
A major bar soap manufacturing facility located in the U.S.

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The Objective
The client has five dust collectors connected to various pneumatic receivers/silos.  The dust collectors are used to vent the dust coming off the pneumatic receivers/silos and keep them under a slight negative pressure.  The dust collectors performed satisfactorily when one pneumatic conveying line sent soap noodles into the receiver, but when two lines sent soap noodles into one receiver, the dust collector fans could not pull enough air to keep the receiver(s) under a negative.  The customer contracted Pneutech Engineering to investigate the problem and find a solution.

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The Solution
The recommended solution was to change the diameter of the piping from the receiver to the dust collector from 8” dia. to 10” dia.  Each conveying blower was sized for approximately 1,200 cfm.  When two blowers were running simultaneously, the dust collector fan had to pull 2,500 cfm from the receiver through an undersized pipe.

Process for solving the problem:
• Airflow and static pressure readings were taken on each dust collection system.  
• Fan curves for the dust collectors were obtained.
• Blower curves for the PD blowers conveying the soap noodles were obtained, and the blowers were checked for operating pressures.
• A simple model of the piping for each dust collector was created to perform static calculations on the ducting.
• The static calculations on the piping to the dust collector revealed that the static loss through the piping exceeded the static capability of the fan.

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Results/Solutions:
After upsizing the piping to the dust collector, the customer can efficiently run two pneumatic conveying systems into one receiver/dust collector combination.

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