NEW MODEL TO CALCULATE THE CHOKING VELOCITY OF MONOSIZE AND MULTISIZE SOLIDS IN VERTICAL PNEUMATIC TRANSPORT LINES

The choking velocity is the minimum gas velocity required for the vertical dilute phase transport of a given solids flux. Experimental choking velocities obtained from the literature for both monosize and multisize particles were compared to choking velocities predicted with various published correlations. For monosize particles, Yang's correlation gave the most accurate predictions. For multisize particles, all the literature correlations gave rather poor predictions. Much more accurate predictions were obtained with a new simple physical model which assumes that an annulus forms along the pipe wall at low gas velocities. Choking then occurs when this annulus occupies approximately 25% of the total pipe cross-sectional area.