ANALYTICAL INVESTIGATION ON CARTRIDGE DUST COLLECTORS IN A COPPER FOUNDRY (AA2)

ISSUE

A copper foundry located in Province of Quebec operates two (2) cartridge dust collectors exhausting fumes from casting furnaces. These units capture fine metallic dust present in the exhaust gas and discharge clean air to atmosphere. Following a sudden increase of the particulate content in the dust collectors exhaust air, the plant was forced to shut down the production in order to investigate the cause of this emission rise. The inspection revealed that six (6) cartridge filters were damaged and caused dust leakage. The damaged cartridges were quickly replaced with new ones to resume production. However, wishing to ensure that this problem does not reoccur, the plant contacted STS Canada to analyse the six (6) used cartridge filter in order to determine the cause of the damage.

RECOMMENDED SOLUTIONS

STS Canada performed the analysis of the mechanical and physical properties of the six cartridge filters. Further to this analysis, STS Canada was able to identify the root cause of the cartridge failures and to propose modifications to prevent such reoccurrence.

RESULTS

Following the analysis of the damaged cartridges, STS Canada determined that the failure was caused by the abrasion of the media due to high velocity particulate impact (sandblasting effect). Furthermore, the presence of melted fibers surrounding the damaged areas, suggested that the contact of high velocity particles with the media produced enough heat to melt the media fibers.

STS Canada submitted a list of modifications to be performed on both dust collectors to eliminate the high velocity impact and prevent repetitive failures of the cartridge filters.