INTRODUCING FUNCTIONALITY TO FILTER MEDIA

摘要

Pumps are major consumers of electricity in the process industries and filters are an integral part of the pumping process. This paper discusses the reduction in energy consumption in the filtration process by using additive manufactured, geometrically optimised, conical, in-line filter supports. These are then com- pared with those currently fabricated by more conventional means. Based on computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations, a new filter support was designed and fabricated using Additive Manufacturing (AM) technology. The comparison was achieved by testing both types of filter supports of similar dimensions with filter mesh in a bespoke test rig at Croft Engineering Services. A 20 gauge, 900 μm filter mesh was used to test the two filter supports with flow rates between 0.0018 m~3 /s and 0.0062 m~3 /s. Comparison of the experimental results revealed that the AM filter support mesh arrangement was superior to the conventional filter support mesh arrangement. In comparison to the conventional ap- proach, the AM filter support pressure drop was 0.443 kPa lower when operated in the forward flow direction and 1.852 kPa lower in reverse flow. The reduction in pressure drop correspondingly reduced the energy consumption by 10 kW/h in forward flow and 29 kW/h in reverse flow.