An Experimental and Numerical Study on the Cleaning of Pleated Bag Filters Using Low-Pressure Pulsed-Jets

Pulsed-jet cleaning is recognized as the most efficient method to regenerate bag dust collectors traditionally used in industrial processes to control the emission of particulates. In this study, non-woven needle felt filter bags with and without a film coating material have been analyzed considering different geometries (different number N of pairs of pleated filter bag sides) in the frame of dedicated low-pressure pulsed-jet cleaning experiments. The flow structure inside the bag and the response characteristics of its wall have also been analyzed numerically through a computational fluid-dynamics/structural-dynamics (CFD-CSD) unidirectional fluid-solid coupling method. As shown by the experiments, the peak pressure (P0) on the wall of the filter bag with N = 8 and 12 is higher, which indicates dust can be removed more effectively in these cases. The peak pressure on the wall increases first and then decreases along the direction of the bag length, while the peak pressure of the pleated filter bag with non-woven needled felt film coating is greater than that without film coating. A comprehensive analysis of the time variation of acceleration, deformation, strain, stress and other factors, has led to the conclusion that the pleated filter bag with N = 12 would be the optimal choice.