Optimal Design of a Pipeline System between Dust Collector and Dust Sources

Abstract

When a dust collector is installed for two or three dust sources, the collector should be most economically connected with each source through pipelines. In this paper the optimal location of collector and the optimal diameters of pipelines are decided so as to minimize the total cost, which consists of the fixed costs of pipelines and a fan, and the operating cost of the latter.
The optimal solutions are analytically obtained when there is only one, or two sources. Especially for the latter case, the following simple and useful conclusion is obtained; the diameters of the two pipelines are the same, and the optimal solution is shown in one figure. For cases of more than two sources, a sophisticated algorithm is proposed to search for the optimal solution.