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ARS Home » Plains Area » Lubbock, Texas » Cropping Systems Research Laboratory » Cotton Production and Processing Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #75406
Title: INFLUENCE OF TRASH EXIT DESIGN ON CYCLONE PERFORMANCE

Author
item Baker, Roy
item Hughs, Sidney
item GREEN, KELLY - TEXAS COTTON GINNERS ASSO

Submitted to: National Cotton Council Beltwide Cotton Conference
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/11/1996
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Cotton gins remove 150 to 1,000 pounds of waste material from each bale of cotton ginned. This waste material is normally transported by various air conveying systems from each cleaner in the gin to a final outdoor collection point. Cotton gins then rely on cyclone collectors to remove the waste from the conveying air before discharging the air to the atmosphere. These cyclones need to operate at maximum efficiency to prevent excessive dust emissions which might cause the cotton gin to violate Federal and State air quality regulations. Past research has shown that the efficiency of a cyclone collector is limited by a breakdown in the separating vortex near the cyclone's trash exit. Twelve techniques were evaluated in this study in an attempt to identify a way to overcome this problem and improve cyclone performance. Three of the techniques studied were found to completely solve the vortex breakdown problem. Use of one or more of these techniques could reduce cotton gin emissions in the future by as much as 25%.

Technical Abstract: Twelve cyclone trash exit arrangements were evaluated using a 34-inch diameter 1D3D cyclone and trash from stripper harvested cotton. Four of the experimental arrangements outperformed the standard cyclone configuration. Superior arrangements included an air bleed system that extracted nine percent of the process air along with the trash, a linear flight design discharging into an unsealed trash system, a large expansion chamber discharging into a sealed trash system, and a spiral flight design discharging into a sealed system. Of these arrangements, the large expansion chamber appeared to be the most practical candidate for retrofitting an existing gin's cyclone system.