Improvement in head loss characteristics of fine particulate coal-water suspension with addition of coarser particulate

An experimental study is performed to examine the pressure drop characteristics during the flow of coal-water slurry suspension using a pilot-plant test loop. The effect of slurry concentration, particle size, and flow velocity on the pressure drop characteristics during the transportation through a horizontal pipeline has been investigated. The present study considers both the unimodal and bimodal particle size distributions for the preparation of coal-water slurry. The pressure drop characteristics for both unimodal and bimodal coal-water slurry are analyzed for a wide variety of slurry concentrations ranging from 30% to 60%, which covers from low to high concentrations. The pressure drop characteristics are also analyzed for different flow velocities ranging from 2 to 5 m/s. It is found that the amount of pressure drop during the flow of coal-water slurry suspension in horizontal pipeline is the function of solid concentration, particle size, and flow velocity. It is also found that the bimodal coal-water slurry significantly reduces the pressure drop during the flow as compared to unimodal coal-water slurry. The maximum reduction in pressure drop during the flow is observed by bimodal coal-water slurry prepared by adding 30% of coarser particles in finer coal particles.