4/26/12 Drum Filters

The Rotary Drum Filter

Click on the thumbnail
to maximize the image

Description
The Rotary Vacuum Drum Filter belongs to the bottom feed group and is one of the oldest filters applied to the
chemical process industry.

The filter consists of the following subassemblies:

To view the components move mouse pointer over the menu

The Drum

The drum is supported by a large diameter trunion on the

valve end and a bearing on the drive end. The drum face
is divided into circumferential sectors each forming a
Drum separate vacuum cell. The internal piping that is
Valve connected to each sector passes through the trunion and
Piping ends up with a wear plate having ports that correspond to
Drive the number of sectors.
Scraper
A gitator
Tank The Valve

A valve with a bridge setting controls

the sequence of the cycle so that
each sector is subjected to vacuum,
blow and a dead zone. When a sector
enters submergence vacuum
commences and continues through
washing, if required, to a point that it
is cut-off and blow takes place to To view the components
assist in discharging the cake. move mouse pointer over
the menu
The valve has on certain filters
adjustable blocks and on others a Cake Formation
fixed bridge ring. Adjustable bridge Cake Washing and Drying
blocks enable the optimization of form Cake Blow Discharge
to dry ratio within the filtration cycle
as well as the "effective submergence"
of the drum when the slurry level in
the tank is at the maximum.

The majority of drum filters have a valve with three bridge blocks and a single
row pipe plate as shown below and on the right. The duty of the bridges is:
(please also refer to Operational Sequence)

1. Vacuum and blow zones separating bridge. This bridge cuts off the
vacuum so it is slightly wider than the internal pipe port.

2. Dead zone bridge. This bridge opens to vacuum once a compartment

submerges.

3. Start-up assist bridge. At start-up the upper vacuum zone is open to

atmosphere and a cake may be formed only when closing the valve that
controls this zone. Once the cake starts to emerge from the tank the
valve is gradually opened and fully opened when the entire drum face is
wrapped with the cake. Since in continuous operation both lower and
upper zones are under vacuum this bridge is slightly narrower than the
internal pipe port so that the vacuum is continuous and the cake is held
onto the drum.

However, there are also more complex drum filters such as lube oil dewaxers. These filters have a sophisticated valve
that allows very quick evacuation of residual wash liquid from the descending compartments by purging inert gas
through the internal piping manifold prior to cake discharge. The images below show the two different valves with their
single and double row pipe plates:

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The exploded view below shows the assembly components of a typical "one row" set-up:

To view the components move mouse pointer over the menu

Pipe Plate
Wear Plate
Main Valve
Bridge Block
Cake Form Conn.
Cake Dry Conn.

The Internal Piping

The internal piping manifold and the various leads and trail options discussed above are shown here:

The clip below shows the internal drum piping of the "two row" manifold. The trail pipes shown in red are normally
handling the mother filtrate on the ascending side of the drum up to the 12 o’clock position and then the lead pipes
shown in blue handle the wash filtrate on the descending side. The trail pipes are always connected to the outer row
and have a bigger diameter than the lead pipes that are connected to the inner row. The reason for this arrangement
is that the trail pipes handle more liquid than the lead pipes so require a bigger cross section to avoid vacuum losses.

The animation on
the left shows a
partial section of
the cycle of a
single compartment
as it passes from
cake washing down
to cake formation
on the descending
side of the drum.

Note the point

when the vacuum
is cut-off and the
trailing pipe opens
to purge. At this
point the leading
pipe evacuates the
filtrate that
remains in the
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piping and
compartment prior
to blowing off the
dry cake.

The Drum Deck

The drum deck is divided into separately isolated compartments each

subjected to vacuum or blow while the drum is in rotation. The timing of
vacuum or blow depends on the bridge setting of the main valve. The
compartments are divided with grooved division strips along the drum face and
around the circumference of the drum heads. These division strips are holding
synthetic grids shown on the right that cover the entire drum and serve to
support the filter cloth. The filter cloth itself is fastened to the drum face by
inserting special caulking ropes into the grooves.

The Filter Cloth

The filter cloth retains the cake and is fastened to the drum face by inserting
special caulking ropes into the grooved division strips. Nowadays, with some
exceptions, they are made from synthetic materials such as polypropylene or
polyester with monofilament or multifilament yarns and with sophisticated
weaves and layers. The image on the right shows the method of joining the
cloth ends with clippers and to retain the fines from passing through to the
filtrate multifilament strings are threaded across the entire cloth width.
Another option quite often used on belt discharge filters is to join the ends
with a special sewing machine.

The entire subject of filter cloth and its selection will be discussed in a
separate section that was not yet constructed.

The Cake Discharge Mechanism

The cake discharge mechanism

that can be either a scraper, belt,
roll and in very rare cases a string
discharge. Blow is applied only to
Click on the thumbnails
filters with scraper and roll
to maximize images discharge mechanisms but not to
filters with a belt or string
discharge.

The images on the left illustrate

the various mechanisms.

The selection of a suitable type of mechanism depends largely on the release characteristics of the cake from the
filter media and will vary from process to process. Scraper discharge mechanisms will suit cakes that release readily
and roller discharge mechanism are better for thixotropic cakes.

The Drum Speed Variation

The drum filter has a drive with a variable speed that rotates the drum at cycle times that normally range from 1 to 10
MPR.

The Agitator

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An agitator keeps gently the slurry in suspension and reciprocates between the drum face and tank bottom at 16 or so
CPM.

The clip below shows a typical agitator:

The Tank

The tank that houses the drum and agitator has baffled slurry feed connections, an adjustable overflow box to set a
desired drum submergence and a drain connection. The tanks are normally designed for an "apparent submergence" of
33-35% however on certain applications 50% and more is possible. With these special designs the tank ends are
higher in order to accommodate stuffing boxes on both the drive shaft and valve end trunnion.

The Cake Washing Manifold

On applications where cake washing is required, 2 or 3 manifolds with overlapping nozzles are mounted to a pair of
splash guards bolted to the tank ends. The position of the manifolds and the quantity of wash liquid are adjustable
depending on the wash characteristics of the cake.

Control Instrumentation

Optional controls may be used to automate settings such as drum speed, applied wash liquid and drum submergence for a
desired cake thickness or throughput. The monitoring of drum submergence controls the slurry feed valves so an adjustable
overflow weir is not necessary except for a fixed connection in case of emergency.

The flow scheme of a Rotary Drum Filter Station will generally look like this:

Operational Sequence
The entire filtration cycle on a rotary drum filter must be completed within a
geometry of 360 degrees. Let us follow the cycle sequence of a single sector
assuming that the drum rotates in a clockwise direction while viewing the valve
end:

To view the zones move the

mouse pointer over the menu

Cake Formation Zone

Cake Predrying Zone
Cake Washing Zone
Cake Final Drying Zone
Cake Discharge Zone
Dead Zone
A ll Zones

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Cake Formation
With the overflow weir set to a maximum the "apparent submergence" is normally 33-35% so the slurry levels between 0400
and 0800 hrs. Once a sector enters submergence vacuum is applied and a cake starts to form up to a point where the
sector emerges from the slurry. The portion of the cycle available for formation is the "effective submergence" and its
duration depends on the number of sectors, the slurry level in the tank and the bridge setting which controls the form to dry
ratio.

Cake Washing and Drying

After emerging from submergence the drying portion of the cycle commences and for non-wash applications continues to
about 0130 hrs where the vacuum is cut-off. If cake washing is required the wash manifolds will be located from about 1030
to 1130 hrs and the remaining time to vacuum cut-off at 0130 is the portion allocated to final cake drying.

Cake Discharge
After vacuum for the entire sector is cut-off air blow commences at about 0200 hrs in order to facilitate cake discharge.
The blow, depending on the position of the tip of the scraper blade, will cut-off at approximately 0300 hrs. Drum filters are
normally operated with a low pressure blow but on certain applications a snap blow is applied and to avoid the snapping out
of the caulking bars or ropes wire winding of the cloth is recommended . Blow is used on scraper and roll discharge
mechanisms but on belt discharge filters vacuum cuts-off when the filter media leaves the drum.

Dead Zone
Once the blow is cut-off the sector passes through a zone blocked with bridges so that no air is drawn through the exposed
filter media which might cause the loss of vacuum on the entire drum surface.

Selection Criteria
In broad terms drum filters are suitable to the following process requirements:

Slurries with solids that do not tend to settle rapidly and will remain in a uniform
suspension under gentle agitation.
Cakes when a single washing stage is sufficient to remove residual contaminants
from the cake or yield maximum recovery of filtrate.
Cakes which do not require long drying times to reach asymptotic moisture values.
Filtrates that generally do not require a sharp separation between the mother and
wash filtrates. Some complex valves, however, enable atmospheric purging of the
sectors and internal piping to facilitate a sharp separation of filtrates.
Filtrates that are acceptable with a low quantity of fines that pass trough the filter
cloth in the first few seconds of cake formation. Broadly, and depending on particle
size and cloth permeability, the filtrate may contain 1000 to 5000 ppm insolubles.
For very corrosive applications plastic drum filters are available with up to 10-15 m2
filtration area.

Maintenance
The slow rotation of the drum and reciprocation of the agitator reduce maintenance requirements to a minimum but the following
should be inspected periodically:

The strip liner of the trunnion bearing at the valve end will normally wear at the lower half. However, in cases when the
slurry has a high specific gravity, the drum may become buoyant causing a wear to the upper half. At this point it should be
mentioned that one way to remove the lower half of the liner, when hoisting facilities are not available or operational, is to
float the drum by filling the tank with a sufficiently concentrated solution.

The stuffing boxes on high submergence filters should be inspected for leakage and, if necessary, the stud nuts should be
tightened. It should be noted that excess tightening can increase substantially the load on the drum drive so the use of a
torque wrench is recommended.

The face of the wear plate should be checked periodically and remachined if necessary. A whistling noise during operation is
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an indication the wear plate is worn out or the valve spring requires tensioning.

The drum has a bailer tube that protrudes from the drive end shaft and must be kept open to atmosphere at all times since
its blockage may cause the collapse of the drum. The bailer tube is a tell-tale indication to the following:

If a lighter flame is drawn through the bailer tube to the inside of the drum it indicates that a vacuum leak exists in
the drum shell or the internal piping. It should be noted that in certain instances there is a possibility that explosive
gases build-up inside the drum and may pose a safety hazard. In such cases the use of aerosol type smokes or a light
tissue paper should be used instead of an open flame to identify a vacuum leak.

If liquid leakage is observed from the bailer tube it indicates that a hole exists in the drum head causing penetration of
slurry from the tank into the drum.

The on-line filter on the wash headers manifold should be checked periodically for pressure build-up due to progressive
blockage. Likewise, the nozzles on the wash headers should be kept clean in order to ensure overlapping for full coverage of
the washed cake.

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