Improvement of Dust Particle Suction Efficiency by Controlling the Airflow of a Regenerative Air Sweeper

Abstract

In a regenerative air sweeper, airflow and dust particles entering the system are filtered and recirculated within the system. The uncirculated portion of the exhaust air in the system spreads to the ambient air, and PM2.5 dust in the air can poison the environment and adversely affect human health. The development of an airflow control system to reduce road dust emissions and improve air quality was the main contribution of this study. A regenerative air sweeper airflow control system is designed to direct the air from the centrifugal fan back into the pickup head to fully absorb the dust particles and balance the positive and negative air pressures inside the pickup head. The modeling and analysis of the dust control system were performed using an experimental test rig system. A mathematical model of the fundamental parameters of the regenerative air sweeper and dust control system was established. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) ANSYS was used for the analysis to determine the direction of airflow via the suction and inlet ducts. The discrete particle model (DPM) accurately predicted particle trajectories and measured the suction efficiency of particles of different shapes and types. By controlling the circulating harmful air flow in the system, the amount of PM2.5 released into the atmosphere was reduced by 90%. The suction efficiency of the 200 μm sized sand particles was higher than 95%. The results provide theoretical and methodological assistance for the development of improved road sweeper dust control systems.

Keywords

• regenerative air vacuum sweeper
• dust control system
• pickup head
• suction efficiency
• computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
• discrete particle model (DPM)