The Rotary Drum Filter

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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:

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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 separate vacuum cell. The
Drum internal piping that is connected to each sector passes through
Valve the trunion and ends up with a wear plate having ports that
Piping correspond to the number of sectors.
Drive
Scraper
Agitator
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 To view the components move
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it is cut-off and blow takes place to assist
in discharging the cake. Cake Formation
Cake Washing and Drying
The valve has on certain filters adjustable Cake Blow Discharge
blocks and on others a fixed bridge ring.
Adjustable bridge blocks enable the
optimization of form 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:
The exploded view below shows the assembly components of a typical "one row" set-up:

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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
Drum Piping Manifold 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 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 filters with scraper and
  roll discharge mechanisms but not to
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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

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:

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Cake Formation Zone
Cake Predrying Zone
Cake Washing Zone
Cake Final Drying Zone
Cake Discharge Zone
Dead Zone
All Zones

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 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.