How To Correctly Size a Baghouse Dust Collector (Article Series)
How large of a baghouse do you need? How do you determine how many filters you need? What air to cloth ratio meets your needs? How much vacuum pressure (static pressure) do you need in the system fan? How much CFM do you need?
These are just some of the questions that may arise when working with dust collection systems are your facility. When designing a new system plant engineers need to decide how large of a system they require before they begin getting quotes from vendors.
A danger exists when facilities ask outside vendors to design a system for them. Many so-called “dust collection experts” are really just sales rep organizations that have little technical background or engineering experience with these systems. As such, they will often sell whatever product lines they have with little regard for making sure it is the best fit for your specific application. Others vendors purposefully recommend undersized systems in order to undercut other vendors on pricing, regardless of how the end system performs for the customer.
Plant personnel can easily avoid being sold an undersized dust collection system by conducting research in advance to get a general idea of what size system they need. Then they can use this estimated sizing information as a basis for getting quotes from multiple vendors.
For this reason, Baghouse.com has prepared a detailed series of articles to help educate users on how to properly size their baghouse system. Each article in this series will cover a different step in the process of determining your dust collection needs for your system. This article series will primarily be of use to plant personnel looking to install new baghouses and ductwork systems. However, the information can also be used when troubleshooting existing systems (where capacity may not be sufficient) or when looking to expand capacity on existing systems.
Click here to download the complete eBook: How To Size a Baghouse Dust Collection System.
Next Section – Part 1 – Why You Need to Properly Size Your Baghouse System
Hello,
I was looking for the Minimum conveying velocity for Carbon black (for housekeeping vacuum system), but it is not in the Table 2-1, and couldn´t find the “more extensive list” mentioned in your Guide. I will appreciate your help on this subject.
Regards.
JS
Jorge,
For a more specific number you will need to consult the ASHIRE guide. Carbon black is likely 4500 – 5000 ft/m.
I would like to understand your guideline to know the my baghouse design condition. your helps will be highly appreciated.
You can download a free copy of the complete guide by signing up for our newsletter on the form on the side. Otherwise send us an email and we will be happy to assist you with reviewing your current system.
I just have 1 week reading about this, so forgive my daring if I’m wrong, but I think you should review 2 possible corrections to the guide:
1- The SP of the elbow of 4 “of 90 degrees, equivalent to 6 ‘of pipe of 4” @ 4,000ft / m, would not be 0.28 “but 0.42″.
2- In Table 2-2, I assume that the formula that applies is Q = VA, which is correct for all diameters if you make the calculation manually. Except for the row of 3”. I would like to know if it is an error or there is an explanation.
3- From Table 2-1 only the “Main velocity” was used. For what cases would we use the “Branch Velocity”?