IPENZ Transactions, Vol. 24, No.

1/EMCh, 1997

Concentration variations within pipe crosssections in a dilute phase pneumatic conveying system
Bernard J Barry,1 DPhil Stephen Tallon,2* ME(Chem) Clive E Davies,2 PhD, DIC, CEng, MIChemE, FIPENZ
Measurements of the distribution of solids over the cross section of a dilute phase pneumatic conveying line were made using attenuation of low energy X-rays. The measurements were taken along a grid of chords across the pipe for mass solids loading ratios up to 3:1 in regions of accelerating flow, fully developed flow in horizontal and vertical orientations, and following 90 bends in the horizontal and vertical planes. Image reconstruction methods for visualisation of the data are discussed. Keywords: pneumatic conveying system particulate flow concentration variations
1

Institute of Geological & Nuclear Sciences Limited, PO Box 31-312, Lower Hutt, and 2Industrial Research Limited, PO Box 31-310, Lower Hutt, New Zealand. *Author for all correspondence. Ph +64-4-569 0000, Fax +64-4-569 0132, E-mail S.Tallon@irl.cri.nz This paper, received in revised form on 6 November 1996, was originally presented at the 1996 IPENZ Conference in February 1996.

1. Introduction
The distribution of solids over the cross section of a pneumatic conveying pipeline is far from uniform, even at low concentrations when the solids are well dispersed. Around bends in the pipeline solid particles are moved to the outside of the pipe, and roping of the particles may also occur for some distance downstream of the bend. In horizontal conveying, gravity causes a bias towards the bottom of the pipe, and even in vertical conveying solids concentrations typically vary between the wall and the center of the pipe [1]. The concentration also varies along the length of the pipe with changing solids velocity such as in accelerating regions after the solids feed point and after bends. In fact, uniform or even fully developed flow may never exist in a typical industrial conveyor, unless it incorporates a significantly long straight section of pipe. This uneven solids distribution has important ramifications in many industrial applications of pneumatic conveying. Applications that incorporate a flow splitter in the line can experience poorly balanced splits due either to roping or to a biased distribution that favours one branch over the other. This can be of considerable economic and environmental cost, as in coal fired power stations where it is important to maintain a balanced air to coal feed ratio for maximum operating efficiency [2]. The dairy industry also uses flow splitters in a number of processes and there is evidence that uneven splits can have a large impact on the quality and consistency of the product. The currently developing field of flow measurement in pneumatic conveying is also influenced by the solids distribution. The majority of systems under development make mass flow measurements from an independent measure of the velocity and the concentration [3]. The velocity can be simply measured by any of a number of techniques, generally involving cross correlation or Doppler analysis. The concentration is more difficult to measure and is typically estimated from the attenuation of an introduced signal, or by changes in measurable properties such as capacitance. Because the solids are not evenly distributed, any concentration measurement system that only senses a localised region of the pipe may not give a representative estimate of the mean concentration. It is therefore important to use a system that interrogates the entire cross section of the pipe [4]. A new method for online concentration measurement, currently being developed at Industrial Research Limited, makes use of the attenuation of acoustic signals travelling along the length of the pipe [5,6]. Results using this method were found to be relatively insensitive to the effects of an uneven solids distribution, even in systems containing a 1

number of bends and areas of unevenly distributed solids. Knowledge of the solids distribution that exists is nonetheless an important factor influencing the passage of acoustic signals and our interest in this provided one of the initial motivating factors for this paper. Measurement and visualisation of concentration profiles are also of interest for continuous monitoring and assessment of process performance, and for the development or verification of process models that depend on the distribution of the phases. A large amount of work has recently been conducted on flow imaging and tomography in two phase flow systems, but very little has been concentrated on solid/gas systems, particularly dilute phase flow. The most common approaches measure concentration through electrical impedance methods [7,8], radiometric methods [4], Laser Doppler Velocimetry [9], and other optical methods such as a laser light sheet [10], or optical fibre probe [11]. A radiometric method using X-rays was employed in this work. It is suitable for use with low particle concentrations, and can give a direct calculation of solids concentration.

1.1 X-ray measurement method

The basis of the method is well known; see for example Charlton [12]. The proportion of radiation that is absorbed when passing through some material is characterised by its mass attenuation coefficient, , which is dependent on the elemental content of the absorbing material and the energy of the radiation. An exact analysis is only possible for a simple homogeneous medium but Artsybashev [13] gives a solution for a heterogeneous suspension which reduces to Eq 1 for granular material suspended in air.

r = r0 {1 - q v (1 - e- D )}l / D
Here r is the measured count rate with both sand and air flowing, r0 is the count rate with air only flowing, qv is the volume concentration of solids, and is the solid density. D is the effective particle size for radiation absorption, taken by Artsybashev to be 0.7 times the diameter in the case of spherical particles, and l is the radiation path length (ie the chord length across the pipe). The value of can be derived from tables such as those of Hubbell [14], l, and D are known, and r and r0 are measured. Thus Eq 1 allows a direct calculation of the solids concentration, qv. In dilute flows the radiation must have a high attenuation coefficient so that when it does encounter a particle it has a high probability of being removed from the detected beam. Calculations based on Eq 1, and using a value of calculated from Hubbell [14], suggested that the isotope 55Fe which emits Xrays of energy 5.9 keV would be suitable for the mean volume concentrations of less than 0.5% used in this work.

(1)

2. Experimental
2.1 Conveying system
The pneumatic conveying system used is shown schematically in Fig 1. The pipeline consisted of 76.2 mm s.s. tube sections with 900 m radius 90 bends; the tube wall was 1.6 mm thick. The straight horizontal sections are respectively, 10.37 m, 2 m, and 9.75 m in length. The vertical straight section is 6.54 m long and following it is a short 2.86 m horizontal section to the separation cyclones. Silica sand with a mass mean particle diameter of 155 m was fed through a calibrated orifice and through a rotary valve. Air was supplied by a Rootes type blower, and the flow rate measured with a pitot tube type device, a Diamond II annubar from Dietrich Corporation, USA. The air flow rate was controlled using a bypass valve and back flow of air through the solids feeder was monitored using a rotameter. Sand flow rates ranged up to 0.351 kg s-1 and air flow rates from 0.1 to 0.18 kg s-1, giving nominal superficial conveying velocities from 18 to 35 m s-1.

2.2 Measurement apparatus

An experimental rig was built in which a source and detector were rigidly connected via an arm which could be raised and lowered in grooves on a block clamped around the pipe. The source was approximately 1 GBq of 55Fe at the time of the measurements, and the detector was a NaI(Tl) scintillation counter with a 1 mm thick crystal covered by a thin Be end window to allow passage of the low energy X-rays. Holes were drilled in the pipe to give radiation paths through the diameter, and through chords 14.5 and 29.5 mm above and below the diameter (Fig. 2).

S8 S7 S9 Exhaust Air

Solids Separation S6

S5 Solids Recycle

Solids Feeder

Air Feed, Flow Measurement

S4

S1

S3

S2

FIGURE 1: Schematic diagram of conveying system, showing location of measurement points.

y

Y5

29.5

Y4

14.5

Y3 -29.5 -14.5 14.5 29.5

Y2

-14.5

Y1

-29.5

X1

X2

X3

X4

X5

FIGURE 2: Schematic diagram of X-ray measurement paths.

The holes were drilled to give an effective hole size of approximately 7 mm diameter as viewed by the source and detector moving perpendicularly to the diameter, but the detector and source were further collimated with holes 5 mm in diameter to ensure the field of view between them did not intersect the pipe wall. A thin plastic sheet covered the holes, to allow the passage of the very low energy radiation but still contain the sand. By sliding the source-detector arm up and down the groove, the radiation passing along the various paths could be measured. By rotating the pipe through 90o a second set of five measurement paths intersecting with the first set could be obtained, as shown in Fig 2. The ten radiation paths are labelled here X1 to X5, and Y1 to Y5. Count rates at each chord were recorded on a data logger and averaged over a period of the order of one minute.

2.3 Analysis of results

The ten cross sectional chords used in this work give an even coverage of much of the area of the pipe, due to the finite width of the source and detector, see Fig 2. The measurements only provide a mean concentration over the path traced out by the radiation beam, and as such cannot be used for full tomographic analysis, but a considerable amount of information on the solids distribution in the pipe is still available. The raw measurements themselves, see for a typical example Fig 3(a), give a qualitative impression of the distribution but it is useful to develop a full cross sectional image of the solids distribution to aid visualisation and interpretation. Two methods for this are discussed. The first approach assumes the recorded mean concentration along each chord is given by the mean of the concentrations at all points of intersection with the other chords. The measured concentration for each chord can then be distributed at each of the points of intersection according to some procedure. In this case, the solids were simply distributed in proportion to the concentrations of all intersecting chords. It should be noted that if the sum of the concentration measured in the x direction is different to that measured in the y direction, as occurred to some degree in all measurements, then scaling of one of the directions is necessary. The result of this method, using the values of Fig 3(a) is shown in Fig 3(b). Darker shades indicate higher solids concentrations.

FIGURE 3: Example of image reconstruction methods, for position S2 looking down the pipe. The sand flow rate is 0.054 kg s-1, and the air flow rate 0.10 kg s-1. (a) mean solids volume concentration measurements (% x 1000). (b) intersection method. (c) surface fitting method. The second approach is to assume a functional concentration distribution over the pipe, in this case as given by Eq 2. Here x and y are normal vectors in a Cartesian plane with the origin at the centre of the pipe, as in Fig 2, and a1 to a7 are fitted parameters. Seven parameters give a reasonable complexity while still allowing for some redundancy when measurements are made through ten different chords.

qv ( x , y ) = a1 + a2 x + a3 y + a4 x 2 + a5 y 2 + a6 x 2 y + a7 y 2 x
Assuming the mean solids concentration along each of the measurement beams is represented by a line through the centre of the actual measurement area, then for a beam in the x direction at a y value of Yi the mean solids concentration is given by Eq 3. Similarly for a beam in the y direction at point Xj the mean solids concentration is given by Eq 4. R is the inside radius of the conveying tube.

(2)

qv ,Yi =

1 2 . xYi

x Yi

x Yi

qv ( x , Yi ). dx

i = 1to5, xYi =

R 2 Yi 2

(3)

qv , X j =

1 2 . yX j

yX j

yX j

qv ( X j , y ). dy

j = 1to5, y X j =

R2 X 2 j

(4)

A least squares fit was then applied between these ten equations and the measured data to estimate the unknown parameters. The result of such a fit is shown in Fig 3c and shows the qualitative similarities between the different methods. All calculations were performed with the software package S-Plus, from Statistical Sciences, USA.

3. Results and discussion

An example of the changes in solids distribution along the pipe is given in Fig 4, which shows the fitted surfaces at the points S1 to S9 for an air flow rate of 0.10 kg s-1 and sand flow rate of 0.162 kg s1 . The distribution is fairly uniform immediately following the solids feeder, point S1, but develops to a distribution favouring the bottom of the pipe further down the pipe, at point S2. Points S3 and S4 are taken a short distance after 90 bends and show a disturbed distribution.

FIGURE 4: Concentration profiles for points S1 to S9, air flow rate 0.10 kg/s, sand flow rate 0.162 kg/s.

The images are taken looking down the pipe and show a higher concentration on the right hand side of the pipe which corresponds to the inside of the bend. This apparent anomaly was particular only to a few flow conditions and is discussed below. Points S6 and S7 are in the vertical section of the pipe, where gravity acts along the direction of flow and cannot be responsible for a bias in solids concentration towards one side of the pipe. The observed flow patterns at these points are the most even of all the measured points. The two following horizontal measurement points, S8 and S9, again show a very non-uniform distribution typical of other horizontal flow points. An annular flow is also apparent for point S9. Figure 5 shows the change in concentration profile with changing flow conditions at the point S1, 3.5 m from the solids feeder. Fairly uniform distributions are seen for all conditions except at the highest concentration where the effects of gravitational settling can already be observed, and at the higher air rates for the lowest solids flow rate where the solids appear to be concentrated in an annular ring at the pipe wall.

FIGURE 5: Concentration profiles using surface fitting method, measurement point S1 after the solids feeder. Figure 6 shows profiles measured at point S4 following the second of the horizontal 90 bends. Most of the distributions are biased towards the bottom and to the left, the outside of the bend, as is generally expected due to the inertia of the solids. The points at low air conveying rates for solids flows 0.162 and 0.342 kg s-1, however, favour the right hand side, or inside of the bend.

FIGURE 6: Concentration profiles using surface fitting method, measurement point S4 - after the second horizontal bend. The images at the top of the vertical section, Fig 7, show very even concentration profiles for all conveying conditions although there is some annular flow which appears to occur for an air flow of 0.18 kg s-1, solids flow 0.054 kg s-1. The images are again facing downstream and the bottom of the page corresponds with the outside of the bend.

4.2 Calibration
The images calculated here are indicative of the distribution only, using concentrations calculated from Eq 1, with no direct calibration. Due to the nature of the system a comprehensive calibration is difficult. However it is possible to compare the mean measured value with an estimated mean solids concentration from the known air and solid flow rates. The concentration at a particular cross section depends on the velocity of the solids which, without direct measurement, can only be estimated. The best place to estimate this velocity is in a section of vertical fully developed flow where the difference between the air and solids velocity, the slip velocity, can be assumed equal to the terminal velocity of the solids falling through air. Stokes law suggests a slip velocity, slip, of around 1 m s-1 for the particle sizes in this work. Using this value in Eq 5, with an air density from known pressures and temperatures, gives an estimate of the mean solids concentration, qss, in fully developed vertical flow. These values can then be compared with measurements taken at point S7 at the top of the vertical line, where the flow is assumed to be fully developed.

qss =

M sand M air slip . A. sand air . A

7

(5)

FIGURE 7: Concentration profiles using surface fitting method, measurement point S7 at the top of the vertical section. This comparison is shown in Fig 8, along with the measured mean values at points S2 and S5 which are at the ends of the long horizontal sections and also assumed to be fully developed. The measured values generally fall above the equal value line by a small amount reflecting errors from the use of Eq 1, the values chosen for it, or from a solids velocity that is somewhat lower than the estimated value. The calculation using Eq 1 is quite sensitive to the particle size used and is based on a single particle diameter whereas the material used had a distribution of sizes, so a direct match is not expected. An absolute calibration using Fig 8 could be made but the analysis of the distributions presented in this work is only relative and is not affected. The measured values in the horizontal plane, at points S2 and S5 in Fig 8, give mean concentrations similar to those in the vertical line, except at three points corresponding to the lowest air flow rates used, which give much higher averages. This indicates a well dispersed flow in the horizontal line, with a slip velocity similar to that in the vertical line for air flows greater than 0.10 kg s-1 (about 18 m s-1 conveying velocity). At the lower conveying velocities there is a greater tendency for settling of the solids to the bottom of the pipe, lower mean solids velocities, and consequently a higher mean concentration. The measured mean concentrations for all other points around the pipe, particularly after the bends, gave higher mean concentrations than the vertical point S7 which is consistent with the expected lower mean solids velocities at these points.

FIGURE 8: Comparison of measured mean solids concentration using X-ray attenuation and Eq 1 with mean solids concentration calculated from Eq 5.

4.2 Concentration profiles

A number of points are worth mentioning on the use of this measurement technique to image concentration distributions. The measurements do not cover every point in the cross section of the pipe. In particular, as Fig 2 shows, there are significant regions near the inner pipe wall that the X-ray paths do not include. There are also many points only covered by one X-ray trace which leaves uncertainty in resolving the actual distribution along the chord. Difficulty in interpretation is expected for distributions, such as horizontal flow, with a settled layer right on the wall of the pipe which contributes high concentration measurements to chords in one direction only. Another limiting factor is the high attenuation of the signal that occurs at local points of high solids concentration. The energy of the X-rays used gives good sensitivity to the dilute flows used in this work, but large errors in the response of the measurement may occur at points of high concentration where the signal nears total absorption. A high local concentration, such as on the bottom of the pipe in horizontal conveying may bias the mean value significantly. For the surface fitted images and calculation of average concentrations the measurements giving values higher than 0.5% were arbitrarily set at 0.5%. The X-ray measurements are also taken in sequence, not simultaneously, and errors arise if fluctuations in the solids distribution occur over a significantly long period compared to the sampling period along each chord. Examples of unsteady flow were noted, particlularly at higher concentrations, and coming out of bends where ropes tend to form and oscillate about the pipe [1]. Variations ranged from rapid fluctuations to a slow drift over a period of minutes. Faster fluctuations will be averaged over the one minute sampling period used but slower oscillations will introduce uncertainty into the measurements. Interpretation of some of the figures should be treated with caution in light of this limitation. The use of a fitted surface to the data also needs to be treated with some caution. By assuming a functional relationship the shape of the reconstructed image is severely limited. The use of a polynomial based surface, such as, Eq 2, limits the surface to reasonably smooth, continuous gradients over the pipe cross section. Realistically, sharp boundaries between concentrated and disperse regions may be evident, particularly if roping or strong gravitational segregation occurs. A number of the reconstructed images, for example in Fig 6, show regions of high concentration at two or three local regions near the wall of the pipe. These areas are quite often out of the most accurate measurement points where the chords intersect and may be partly artefacts of the fitted equation. In the paper by Huber and Sommerfield [10] comparable results are presented for a system with significantly smaller particles, using a laser light sheet, and phase Doppler anemometry (PDA). They also found evidence of ropes following bends which typically break up 1 to 2 m after a vertical bend, but may persist for some distance after horizontal bends. In our work, measurements 0.81 m after the vertical bend show well dispersed profiles and no evidence of roping unless the rope moves around the pipe to give an even distribution when averaged over the sampling period. Differences in particle size 9

and pipe wall roughness are all significant factors in the break up of ropes [10] and can account for differences between different systems. Several of the distributions in Fig 6, 0.98 m after the second bend, for example at an air flow of 0.10 kg s-1 and a solids flow of 0.342 kg s-1, show solids concentrated on the side of the pipe corresponding to the inside of the bend. This is attributed to swirling or rebounding of a particle rope, or a similar effect, before breaking up further downstream of the bend. This occurrence was also observed by Huber and Sommerfield [10] in flow through vertical and horizontal bends. For pneumatic conveying systems which have a flow splitter in the line, it is important to know which regions in the pipeline are likely to give an even split. The influence of bends on the solids distribution is apparent in this work, both upstream, and in some cases for a considerable distance downstream of the bend. Consideration of Fig 4 suggests that apart from immediately after the solids feeder, and in the vertical section, the solids are poorly distributed. In general however the solids distribution is more even for the higher air velocities. Figure 6 shows greater evenness in the distribution after the second bend when the air velocity is higher, and the values in Fig 8 also suggest that the concentration is closest to that of the calculated fully developed and suspended flow when the air velocity is higher.

5. Conclusions
The attenuation of X-rays has been used to measure solids volume concentration cross sectional profiles at different points along a conveying line. Reconstructed images of the data were made using a surface fitting approach. While this approach has limitations it provides useful visualisation of the data and of the concentration profiles. Regions which may cause difficulty in flow splitting operations, where the solids are unevenly distributed, have been identified. Uniform concentration profiles were recorded in the vertical section of the pipe, and immediately after the solids feeder. Otherwise the distribution was generally as expected with solids favouring the bottom of the pipeline in horizontal flow for higher solids loadings. Flow through the bends was characterised by higher mean concentrations, and generally uneven distributions.

6. Notation
a1 to 7 A D l qss qv Parameters in Eq 2 (-) Cross sectional area of the pipe (m2) Solid particle length dimension (m) Radiation path length (m) Steady state mean solids volume concentration, Eq 5 (vol/vol) Solids volume concentration (vol/vol) Mean solids volume concentration across a chord in the pipeline (vol/vol) Measured count rate through a chord in the pipeline (s-1) Inside radius of tube (m) Measured count rate through an empty pipe (s-1) Position of the centreline of a measurement chord in the y direction (m) Position of the centreline of a measurement chord in the x direction (m)

qv

r R r0 X Y Greek Particle density (kg m-3) slip Slip velocity (m s-1) Mass attenuation coefficient (m2 kg-1)

7. References
1. Marcus, R.D., Leung, L.S., Klinzing, G.E., Rizk, F. 1990. Pneumatic conveying of solids: A theoretical and practical approach, Chapman and Hall, pp. 132-134. 2. Barnes, R.N., Murnane, S.N. 1995. The sensing of unbalanced pulverised coal feed rates at the exit of riffle boxes in coal fired power station fuel distribution systems, Proceedings of the 5th International conference on bulk materials storage handling and transportation, Newcastle, 10-12 July, pp. 273-282, 1995. 3. Beck, M.S., Green, R.G., Thorns, R. 1987. Non-intrusive measurement of solids mass flow in pneumatic conveying, Journal of Physics. E, Scientific Instruments, 20, July, 835-840. 4. Yan, Y., Byrne, B., Coulthard, J. 1994. Radiometric determination of dilute inhomogeneous solids loading in pneumatic conveying systems, Measurement Science Technology, 5:110-119.

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5. Tallon, S., Davies, C.E. 1995. Flow rate monitoring and measurement in dilute phase pneumatic conveying using pressure fluctuations, Developments in Fluidization and Fluid Particle Systems, AIChE Symposium Series,91 (308):137-146. 6. Tallon, S., Davies, C.E. 1996. Velocity and attenuation of soound: Application to flow rate estimation in pneumatic conveying, Powder Handling and Processing, 8 (4): 329-336. 7. McKee, S.L., Dyakowski, T., Williams, R.A., Bell, T.A., Allen, T. 1995. Solids flow imaging and attrition studies in a pneumatic conveyor, Powder Technology, 82: 105-113. 8. Dickin F.J., Williams, R.A., Beck, M.S. 1993. Determination of composition and motion of multicomponent mixtures in process vessels using electrical impedance tomography -I:Principles and process engineering applications, Chemical Engineering Science 48 (10): 1889-1897. 9. Woodhead, S.R., Pittman, A.N., Ashenden, S.J. 1995. Laser Doppler velocimetry measurements of particle velocity profiles in gas-solid two-phase flow, IMTC Proceedings: IMTC 95: Integrating Intelligent Instrumentation and Control: 1995 IEEE Instrumentation/Measurement Technology Conference, Waltham, Mass., USA: 770-773. 10. Huber, N., Sommerfield, M. 1994. Characterization of the cross sectional particle concentration distribution in pneumatic conveying systems, Powder Technology, 79: 191-210. 11. Hong, J., Tomita, Y. 1995. Measurement of distribution of solids concentration on high density gas-solids flow using an optical-fibre probe system, Powder Technology, 83: 85-91. 12. Charlton, J. S. (ed.) 1986. Radioisotope techniques for Problem-solving in Industrial Process Plants, Leonard Hill. 13. Artsybashev, V. A. 1991. Heterogeneity theory in nuclear geophysics - I. Basic heterogeneity theory. Nuclear Geophysics 5: 247-55. 14. Hubbell, J. H. 1982. Photon mass attenuation and energy-absorption coefficients from 1 keV to 20 MeV. International Journal of Applied Radiation and Isotopes, 33: 1269-90.

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