Sonic Horns: The Solution For Baghouse Cleaning
Power generation plants form a vital part of any country's
infrastructure so their efficiency is of paramount importance. Downtime can be
very costly with many negative, knock-on effects.
Our sonic horns can help improve efficiency and avoid downtime in power plants and we were particularly pleased with how we recently helped a US power company solve their baghouse cleaning problems.
Scenario: The plant has a large baghouse with six compartments. The baghouse is located behind a scrubber so particles are very fine. The product is coke and coal ash combination. The plant had been experiencing severe material build up on the filter bags which was not being removed by the conventional filter cleaning system of blowing high pressure down the bags about every 15 seconds. So they approached us to see if we could help with our sonic horns.
Now we know from experience that such a build up causes a big increase in differential pressure across the filter bags which then behave like a blocked vacuum cleaner and lose power. Also the life of the filter bags (which are not cheap in terms of purchasing replacements plus the time to strip out and refit) is greatly reduced. Moreover, if the filter subsequently fails then the whole upstream plant has to be shut down. So this baghouse problem was really hurting them with regard to running both of their boilers.
Solution: We suggested the installation of our sonic horns and as they needed help fast but with no prior experience of acoustic cleaning, they wanted to tread carefully and so opted for a rental plan. They rented 4 of our 75Hz horns in early August this year.
However, within 10 days they informed us there was a problem - the horns only worked when the filter with its vacuum was switched off. We spent the next month getting them to check various things as we had not supplied the ancillary items - they had sourced these themselves. Each part was checked and found to be OK. So by mid September they were convinced that our horns would not work under vacuum and were considering returning them to us. However, we knew for certain that our units do work well under vacuum as baghouse filter plants are a popular area for our sales.
The only solution was for our Technical Director to visit site deep in Alexandria Louisiana. On October 12 he flew out and worked on site with the engineers during the night when the plant was not operating. He tested everything and then found that they had installed the mountings for the horns the wrong way round. The moment these were changed the units worked perfectly and the engineers on site were amazed at the amount of particulate they debonded.
The company has since confirmed its intention to purchase these four sonic horns and to purchase a further 8 units for installation during their next shutdown.
Our sonic horns can help improve efficiency and avoid downtime in power plants and we were particularly pleased with how we recently helped a US power company solve their baghouse cleaning problems.
Scenario: The plant has a large baghouse with six compartments. The baghouse is located behind a scrubber so particles are very fine. The product is coke and coal ash combination. The plant had been experiencing severe material build up on the filter bags which was not being removed by the conventional filter cleaning system of blowing high pressure down the bags about every 15 seconds. So they approached us to see if we could help with our sonic horns.
Now we know from experience that such a build up causes a big increase in differential pressure across the filter bags which then behave like a blocked vacuum cleaner and lose power. Also the life of the filter bags (which are not cheap in terms of purchasing replacements plus the time to strip out and refit) is greatly reduced. Moreover, if the filter subsequently fails then the whole upstream plant has to be shut down. So this baghouse problem was really hurting them with regard to running both of their boilers.
Solution: We suggested the installation of our sonic horns and as they needed help fast but with no prior experience of acoustic cleaning, they wanted to tread carefully and so opted for a rental plan. They rented 4 of our 75Hz horns in early August this year.
However, within 10 days they informed us there was a problem - the horns only worked when the filter with its vacuum was switched off. We spent the next month getting them to check various things as we had not supplied the ancillary items - they had sourced these themselves. Each part was checked and found to be OK. So by mid September they were convinced that our horns would not work under vacuum and were considering returning them to us. However, we knew for certain that our units do work well under vacuum as baghouse filter plants are a popular area for our sales.
The only solution was for our Technical Director to visit site deep in Alexandria Louisiana. On October 12 he flew out and worked on site with the engineers during the night when the plant was not operating. He tested everything and then found that they had installed the mountings for the horns the wrong way round. The moment these were changed the units worked perfectly and the engineers on site were amazed at the amount of particulate they debonded.
The company has since confirmed its intention to purchase these four sonic horns and to purchase a further 8 units for installation during their next shutdown.
Question: So why 75Hz as opposed to any other?
Answer: Our in-house computer modelling software (designed
in conjunction with the University of Liverpool) indicated that this was the
most appropriate model for the application in question. Two filters separated
into 4 sections with one 75Hz horn per section.
Proof that the sonic horn is the ideal solution for baghouse cleaning.
posted by DFC at
8:09 AM
