SIMPLIFIED COMPUTATIONAL METHOD FOR CONSTANT PRESSURE EXPRESSION OF FILTER CAKES

Abstract

In industrial calculations for design of expression equipment, application of the rather complicated analytical solutions of the so-called consolidation equation may lead us to some difficulties, although the solutions can serve as a predominant basis for a firmer understanding of the mechanism of deliquoring of solid-liquid mixtures by compression.
To afford a useful mathematical tool for industrial analysis of constant-pressure expression of filter cakes with inhomogeneous void ratio distribution, the simplified equation previously presented for constant-pressure expression of homogeneous semisolid materials is extended. The calculated results by using the simplified computational method presented in this paper have shown reasonable agreement with experimental results. It has been also demonstrated that the experimental values of both the modified consolidation coefficient C''e and the consolidation behavior index v can easily be determined by graphical methods. It should be noted that the v-value for filter cakes determined by the simplified computational method may tend to become larger than those for homogeneous semisolid materials.