A Different Viewpoint on Pneumatic Conveying

On June 18, David Mills will present a DryPro Series webinar on Air and Particle Flow in Pipelines that will look at pneumatic conveying from a rather different viewpoint.

The webinar aims to explain how particles flow and why pipelines block, why it is so easy to convey vertically up, and why upward inclined pipelines should be avoided. The fundamentals about dilute-phase conveying and low-velocity dense-phase conveying will be explained, together with everything you need to know about conveying air velocity to keep the material moving in any mode of flow, with the minimum power requirements. Bends (or is it elbows?) that are so convenient, yet so problematical, will be dealt with in detail, as is the need for stepped pipelines for high-pressure and high-vacuum systems. A particular feature of the lecture will be the highlighting of some of the problematic areas that exist in pneumatic conveying with pipeline layouts, material feeding, and ‘difficult’ materials.

An independent consultant, Mills was graduated from Woolwich Polytechnic in London in 1961 with a first class honors degree in Mechanical Engineering. He worked as a nuclear engineer with Atomic Power Constructions Ltd, and then in academia as a thermodynamicist at Thames Polytechnic, specializing in heat and mass transfer. He undertook a PhD program on pneumatic conveying in 1973, and has been working in this area ever since, first at the University of Greenwich in London, then as professor of bulk solids handling at Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland.

Since 1997, Mills has been operating as an independent consultant. He has written more than 200 articles for technical journals and conferences, and has presented short courses and undertaken consultancy on a worldwide basis. In 2003 he was appointed conjoint professor at the University of Newcastle in Australia, and in 2007 he received the UK Institution of Mechanical Engineers Solids Handling Award in recognition of his professional excellence in bulk solids handling technology. In 2010 he was appointed adjunct professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. He is author of the ‘Pneumatic Conveying Design Guide’ (SI units) (second edition) and the ‘Handbook of Pneumatic Conveying Engineering’ (US units), both published in 2004. He has been associated with the International Powder & Bulk Solids Conference since it began in 1976.

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