Pressure Losses Due to Bends in
Pneumatic Forage Handling
I N recent years, interest has devel-
oped in pneumatic handling of
chopped forage. Harris et ah, 1966 and
Wolfe et ah, 1970, conducted studies
concerning pressure drops in horizontal
conveyance through straight tubes and
the problem of feeding the material into
the conveying line. Although most prac-
tical conveyors would require one or
more bends, no information has been
reported for designing these compo-
nents into pneumatic systems for
chopped forage.
Pressure losses in various fittings have
been reported for homogeneous fluids
such as air and water. However, even for
these fluids, little data is available for
the higher bend radius-to-pipe diameter
ratios recommended for pneumatic con-
veying lines (Perry, 1963 and Piggot,
1957).
Cornish and Charity 1966, Klueter et
al. 1962 and Segler 1951, have consid-
ered the conveyance of grain and milled
feed materials using small diameter tube
bends having 90 degree deflection
angles. These results are not suitable for
designing conveying systems for such
markedly different materials as corn and
grass silage.
Ghosh and Kalyanaraman (1970)
have presented a theoretical analysis
considering various aspects of particle
dynamics to account for friction, im-
pact and centrifugal resistances, This
Article was submitted for publication on
May 6, 1971; reviewed and approved for
publication by the Power and Machinery
Division of ASAE on October 7, 1971. Paper
of the Journal Series. New Jersey Agricultural
Experiment Station, Rutgers-The State Univ-
ersity, Biological and Agricultural Engineering
Dept., New Brunswick, N. J.
The authors are: BOOTA SINGH, Re-
search Assistant, Agricultural Engineering
Dept., Ohio State University, Columbus; and
R. R. WOLFE, Associate Professor, Biological
and Agricultural Engineering Dept., Rutgers
University, New Brunswick, N. J.
TABLE 1. SPECIFICATIONS OF BENDS USED
IN THIS STUDY
Deflection Inside
Bend angle, diameter,
no. deg. in.
1 45 5.91
2 45 5.91
3 45 5.91
4 90 5.91
5 90 5.91
6 90 5.91
246
Boota Singh and R. R. Wolfe
MEMBER
ASAE
method requires knowledge of the frac-
tions of particles sliding and impacting
against the bend wall, as well as, particle
velocities at the entrance and exit of the
bend. Properties such as coefficient of
restitution and particle drag coefficient
must be known making application to
chopped forage materials difficult. Their
analysis is based on assumptions that
the particles are rigid and of uniform
size which is hardly the case for the very
irregular-shaped and mixed-size particles
found in chopped forages.
The object of this study was to
develop empirical relationships for cal-
culating pressure losses due to bends
having various deflection angles and
radii of curvature as affected by air and
material flow rates. In addition, the
distance downstream from the bend
required for complete material reac-
celeration was determined for various
conveying conditions.
EQUIPMENT AND
INSTRUMENTATION
A material feeder, blower, straight
pipe, bends having various deflection
angles and radii of curvature and a
receiving chamber comprised the basic
equipment for this study. The screw
injector developed by Wolfe et al.
(1970) provided satisfactory control of
material flow rates during the testing.
The blower was capable of delivering
over 1,300 cfm at 40 in. of water
pressure head. The straight pipe and
bends were made of galvanized steel
with circular cross-sections.
The bends as specified in Table 1
were mounted in the conveying line
with at least 18 ft of straight pipe
immediately upstream and downstream.
A 4-ft sealed box was used to receive
and separate the conveyed material and
air.
TABLE 2. CORN SILAGE PARTICLE SIZE
DISTRIBUTION
Radius of Wall Sieve dimension
curvature, thickness, in.
in. in.
0.375
15 0.075 0.185
30 0.075 0.093
48 0.075 0.046
15 0.075 0.023
30 0.075 0.011
48 0.075 PAN
Air flow rates varying between 60
and 130 fps were measured using a
standard ASME orifice installed in a
pipe extending from an outlet in the top
of the receiving chamber. The differen-
tial orifice pressure was recorded
throughout the test periods on paper
tape for computer data processing. For
determining air densities, the ambient
wet and dry bulb temperatures were
taken with a sling psychrometer and the
conveying air temperatures were mea-
sured with thermocouples and a poten-
tiometer recorder. The average material
flow rates ranging up to 7.7 lb per sec
were determined using a stopwatch and
platform scale.
A pressure tap assembly was installed
at a distance of 1.75 ft upstream from
the bend. Also a series of pressure taps
were installed on the downstream side
at intervals of 3 ft. Differential pressures
between the various pressure taps were
measured with inclined manometers
mounted on a single panel. The mano-
meter readings were recorded by photo-
graphing the panel ten times during a
test run. Reading the films on a strip
film viewer provided a resolution of
1/32 in. of water pressure drop. Singh,
1970 gives further details on the equip-
ment and instrumentation.
The corn silage used throughout this
study was chopped with a conventional
forage harvester set at 1/8 in. theoretical
length of cut. It had been ensiled for
approximately four months prior to the
testing. The particle size distribution for
this material as determined with a set of
ASTM sieves shaken for 10 min on a
standard Ro-Tap machine is given in
Table 2.
The moisture content of the material
was determined by the oven-dry method
for each run and found to vary from 65
to 70 percent wet basis with an average
Percent retained
by wt
8.9
27.1
33.3
17.8
10.3
2.5
0.1
1972 - TRANSACTIONS of the ASAE
of 68 percent. The duration of the test
runs varied from two to seven minutes
and they were carried out in random
order to minimize time effects.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Pressure Loss Due to Bends
The total pressure loss due to the
presence of a bend in a pneumatic
conveying line may be expressed as
P =P +P +P
T SL C R
"T = total pressure loss
PSL = straight line pressure loss
Pc = pressure loss due to bend
curvature
PR = pressure loss required to re-
accelerate the material and
air to steady state down-
stream from the bend
The "straight line pressure loss" is
that required for steady state flow
through a length of straight pipe equal
to the cnterline length of the elbow.
The remaining losses, P c + P R , are
hereafter designated as the "pressure
loss due to bend", P B , which can be
further divided into the solids and air
loss components designated by the sub-
scripts s and a as follows:
P +P +P +P
Ca Cs Ra Rs
The pressure loss due to the bend for
solids only, P C s + PR S > *S a function of
several variables. The important factors
have been identified and arranged in a
set of thirteen dimensionless ratios as
follows (Cornish and Charity, 1966):
R M
= 0(
P V* D p VDZ
p Vz p VD
where:
P s = Pressure loss due to bend for
solids only
p = Density of conveying air
V = Nominal air velocity*
R = Radius of curvature of bend
D = Inside diameter of conveying
tube
M = Mass rate of solids flow
g = Acceleration of gravity
* Nominal air velocity is defined as the air
flow rate divided by the inside cross-sectional
area of the tube.
1972 - TRANSACTIONS of the ASAE
d = Representative length of con-
veyed material
p s = Density of solids
e = Bulk modulus of air
/i = Viscosity of air
f = Coefficient of friction
a = Angle of inclination with hor-
izontal
]3 = Angle of deflection
Z = Particle shape factor
r = Inside surface roughness of
conveying tube
[1] In this study, the angle of inclination
was held constant at zero and therefore
the forces involved in changes in particle
elevation should be negligible in com-
parison with the viscous drag forces.
This justifies removing the gravitational
constant, g, from the analysis. Since
system pressures were below 30 in. of
water and conveying air temperature
variations were small, compressibility
and viscosity were also eliminated.
Corn silage having little variation in
moisture content and the same tube
were used throughout this study and
therefore it was assumed that d, p s , f, r,
and Z were not varying.
The number of significant variables
have now been reduced to seven and
they can be expressed in the following
four dimensionless ratios:
R M
[2]
[4]
For a given deflection angle, j3, and
assuming that a generalized power law is
valid, the functional relationship can be
written as
r2
D
R . M transport system, a significant amount
d of energy is required for reacceleration
P V*
|5|
Using the data from 108 test runs,
the ratios P s / p a V 2 and M/p a VD 2 were
computed and plotted for each of the
R/D and j5 combinations available. All
of the results showed a linear relation-
ship between the ratios P s /p a V 2 and
M/p a VD 2 , as illustrated in Fig. 1. Thus,
the parameter c can be taken as one and
combining with equation [2] gives the
following model for pressure drop due
to bend for both the air and solids
phases.
MV R .
=a ("~)b + k [6]
Dz D tion angle and 5.08 R/D ratio.
where k represents the pressure losses
for air flow only. For each deflection
angle, this model was fitted to the
experimental data using a non-linear
least squares computer routine (Dixon,
1968). As a result we have
MV R 0 18
- + 0.13 . [7]
r-\4 -r-x
D' D
where:
P B = pressure loss due to bend for
air and solids flow, in. of water
M = solids flow rate, lb per sec
V = nominal air velocity, ft per sec
R = bend radius of curvature, ft
D = inside pipe diameter, ft
and for deflection angles equal to:
45 deg; a - 0.00334
90 deg; a - 0.00537
The standard error of estimates for
the 45 and 90 deg cases were 0.39 and
0.64 in. of water, respectively. The
computed standard deviations for the
parameter " a " were less than 0.00002 in
both cases and thus it appears that this
parameter is accounting for a significant
effect of deflection angle on the bend
pressure losses.
In the design of pneumatic systems
handling chopped forage, the total loss
effect for a bend can be obtained by
summing the pressure loss computed
from the new equation [7] and the
so-called straight line pressure drop
which can be calculated from the pres-
sure drop equation presented by Wolfe,
etal., 1970.
Length of Reacceleration Zone
It is generally known that down-
stream from a bend in a solids-fluid
of the material to its original steady
state velocity. In the application of
design equations presented elsewhere in
this report and by other authors, it is
helpful to know the distance down-
/S-459
R/D 5.08
M/p a VD 2
FIG. 1 Typical plot of dimensionless ratios,
P
s/Pa
y2 versus
M/p a VD 2 , for 45 deg deflec-
247
stream from the bend that is required to
reaccelerate the material.
To determine the length of the reac-
celeration zone, pressure drop data for
the downstream pipe sections were
plotted against distance from the exit
end of the bend. This made it possible
to graphically determine for each run
the distance required to reaccelerate the
material to 99 percent of steady state in
terms of pressure drop. Tabulation of
these results showed a significant effect
of material and air flow rates on this
steady state length. No effects of R/D
or deflection angle were evident. There-
fore, multiple linear regression analysis
was used to determine the following
empirical relationship
L s s = 0.096 V + 0.63 M + 2.93 . [8]
where:
L = Length of reacceleration
SS & 9 Singh, Boota. 1970. Pressure losses due
zone, ft.
V = Nominal air velocity, ft per
sec
M = Material flow rate, lb per sec
The standard error of estimate is
1.61 and the residual differences be-
tween reacceleration length values ob-
tained by this model and experimental
248
results averaged 1.24 ft for all data
obtained in this study.
Wolfe and Tatepo, 1970, reported
that moisture content is the primary
factor influencing the aerodynamic be-
havior of corn and grass silages in spite
of major differences in particle charac-
teristics. This suggests that the relation-
ships developed in this study for corn
silage may be applicable to other bulk
materials such as grass silage provided
they are in the same moisture content
range. Even if there is a wide difference
in moisture level, it should be possible
to apply suitable corrections and get
reliable results.
SUMMARY
A study was conducted to determine
the pressure drop due to bends in the
pneumatic conveying of chopped forage
as related to the air and material flow
rates, tube diameter, bend radius of
curvature and angle of deflection. A
non-linear prediction model was esta-
blished through dimensional analysis
and experimentation for use in design-
ing systems with one or more bends.
The length of the reacceleration zone
downstream from the bend was also
determined and found to be a linear
function of both air and material flow
rate.
References
1 Cornish, G. K. and L. F. Charity. 1966.
Pressure drop in elbows of a pneumatic
conveying system. TRANSACTIONS OF THE
ASAE 9(1):29-31.
2 Dixon, W. J., Editor. 1968. Biomedical
computer programs, University of California
Press, Berkeley.
3 Ghosh, D. P. and K. Kalyanaraman.
1970. Pressure drop due to solids around
horizontal elbow bends during pneumatic
conveyance, Journal of Agricultural Engineer-
ing Research 15(2): 117-128.
4 Harris, W. L., K. E. Felton, and G. J.
Burkhardt. 1966. Penumatic handling of
chopped alfalfa hay. Bulletin A-143, Agricul-
tural Experiment Station, University of
Maryland, College Park, May.
5 Klueter, H. H., H. B. Puckett, H. H.
Beaty, and E. F. Olver. 1962. Medium-
pressure pneumatic feed conveying, AGRI-
CULTURAL ENGINEERING
43(10): 572-575.
6 Perry, J. H. 1963. Chemical Engineers'
Handbook. Fourth Edition, McGraw-Hill,
New York, pp 5-34.
7 Piggot, R. J. S. 1957. Pressure losses in
tubing, pipe and fittings. Transactions of the
ASME 79:1767-1783.
8 Segler, G. 1951. Pneumatic grain con-
veying. National Institute of Agricultural Eng-
ineering, Wrest Park, England.
to bends in pneumatic transport of chopped
forage. Unpublished M.S. thesis, University of
Wisconsin, Madison.
10 Wolfe, R. R. and C. G. Tatepo. 1970.
Terminal velocity of chopped forage mate-
rials. ASAE Paper No. 70-362, ASAE, St.
Joseph, Mich. 49085.
11 Wolfe, R. R., M. M. Smetana, and G. W.
Krutz. 1970. Performance characteristics and
feeder design in pneumatic conveying of
chopped forage. TRANSACTIONS OF THE
ASAE, 13(3):332-334.
1972 - TRANSACTIONS of the ASAE