Characterization and Comparison between Dust from Field Tested Air Filters and ISO 12103-1 Test Dusts

摘要

"How well do air filtration lab tests compare to real work conditions?" is a question that is heard around the industry. Various grades of ISO 12103-1 test dusts and customer specific test dusts have been extensively used for conducting gravimetric efficiency and dust holding capacity tests of air filtration systems. The ISO 12103-1 A2 Fine test dust has mainly been used for single stage (without pre-cleaner) air filtration systems. ISO 12103-1 A4 Coarse test dust is mainly used for multi-stage air filtration systems. This presentation will show a comparison between the dust samples collected from field tested elements and the ISO 12103-1 test dusts, giving qualitative insight about how realistic the lab environment dust holding capacity testing is. There are various methods to characterize dust size distributions, such as liquid dispersion with Coulter, or air dispersion with TSI APS, and many others. This paper describes a relatively easy method to collect and characterize the dust from air filter elements, and the post-test analysis for dust size distribution comparison.