Ask Dr. Nick: Avoiding “Angel Hairs”

On ARM’s most recent What’s Your Problem? teleconference, there was a question asked about powder piping systems, especially about avoiding and dealing with “angel hairs”. I provided some follow up to the molder after the call, which we’re happy to share here for everyone’s use.

My first recommendation was to contact ARM’s mainstream pulverizer supplier members, who should be able to offer good advice. They are the real experts in this area.

In the meantime, I also recommended installing simple traps for angel hair in your lines.  Pulverizer systems have these in place.  The grid has something like ½ inch gaps and the sideplate can be opened for manual removal of accumulated debris.  The pulverizer folks will have proper drawings of this; please excuse my rudimentary draftsmanship!

As far as I’m concerned, angel hair production gets bad when ambient heat is sufficient to start to soften powder particles.  A particle momentarily trapped on an obstruction will then get stretched and elongated by fast air flow around it and a hair gets formed.  So keeping temperatures down (say below 100°F), or not generating elevated temperatures in the first place (correct pipe sizing and avoidance of sharp bends), should help a lot.

Note from staff: ARM offers What’s Your Problem? teleconferences — an audio version of our popular troubleshooting workshop — to our members every six weeks as a free benefit of membership.

Dr Nick Henwood serves as the Technical Director for the Association of Rotational Molders. He has 25 years-plus experience in rotomolding, specializing in the fields of materials development and process control. He operates as a consultant, researcher and educator through his own company, Rotomotive Limited, based in UK.