Abstract:
A cyclone occurs when the central area of air has lower pressure than the surroundings. The purpose of this research is to design a device called a cyclone conveyor which simulates the cyclonic motion of air. The vacuum created in such a device is used to convey materials. Twenty cyclones with constant diameters of bottom-ends, inlet nozzles, suction pipes, and discharge pipes are built. The study is divided into two parts. In the first part, the characteristic of cyclones are investigated. For the tested cyclones with some fixed parameters, it is found that the maximum vacuum occurs in the cyclone at the constant cyclone angle of 6 with different cyclone heights and the vacuum in the cyclone increases as the cyclone height is decreasing. In the second part, the cyclones with given heights and cyclone angles of 5 degrees are used to convey sand, cane-sugar, and tapioca. The rate of conveying increases as the cyclone height decreases. The investigationreveals that the design system is feasible. The system, when comparing with the existing vacuum-pressure system, has greater operational flexibility and lower initial cost.