In today’s episode of the Dust Safety Science podcast, Tristan Trupka, Vice President of Engineering at IAC, based out of Mission, Kansas, goes over the considerations and challenges involved in designing and installing dust collection systems for greenfield applications. These are extremely large systems, and Tristan’s role at IAC has given him in-depth experience on the whole lifecycle approach with them: from designing and engineering to installation and maintenance.
When Should Dust Collection Systems Figure in the Design of a New Facility?
Tristan recommended that building owners take the new facility’s dust collection needs into account as soon as possible, depending on the industry.
“The dust collection needs are part and parcel of the project itself or the process itself. Many of the industries that we’re in have what you would call a process baghouse, where every cubic foot of flue gas or every ton of material that’s produced at the plant will flow through a baghouse,” he says. “Those process baghouses are really integral to the process that that particular facility is being built for to execute – so on Day 1 for those types of applications.”
Even in facilities where dust collection isn’t integral to the process, Tristan recommends that the design start as soon as possible. IAC often works with clients once they select a piece of land or even identify which state they want to build in.
“[We will] size the appropriate process and nuisance collectors that will be required and then work with the client to get the permitting data packaged up. How much CFM are you going to be emitting, and in what areas of the plant? How tall do the stacks need to be? What diameter do the stacks need to be? We work with the permitting consultants to help get that pushed through all the different governmental agencies that review those items.”
What are the Main Baghouse Type Systems?
Process and ‘nuisance’ systems are the two main categories of dust collection system, but each one has its subsets. On the process side, some of them deal with the flue gas off of a boiler, furnace or a heavy piece of equipment integral to the process. With others, the product may flow through the baghouse itself: for example, in a milling system or in the cement industry, there are single-pass separators that recirculate the cement being ground down and send the larger material back to the mill while the finer material is carried away through centrifugal forces to the baghouse.
What are Common Challenges With the Design and Implementation of an Effective System?
Tristan said that one common mistake is not getting a company like IAC or a dust control expert involved early enough, especially when the system is on the larger side. A baghouse may be the single largest piece of equipment on a given facility’s property, so the space planning and the arrangement of the exhaust stack and the ductwork into that baghouse could play a significant role in how different areas of the process are arranged physically.
“Getting someone like IAC involved on the front end can [prevent you from] backing yourself into a corner where you have to make some concessions in terms of packaging or maybe maintenance access or a little bit of efficiency loss due to some of the bottlenecks you may unknowingly be creating by not providing enough footprint for the equipment to go in,” he says.
He recalled one project involving a reverse-air style baghouses for a new steel plant in Texas.
“We were one of the first contractors on site to break ground and pour our own foundations to get that process moving just because there were so many man hours required in assembling these very large baghouses. They each filtered 1.65 million CFM for a total of 3.3 million, sitting next to one another. These are some of the larger baghouses IAC’s ever done: physically they’re about 240 feet long, 80 feet wide, each one of them with about a 30-foot, 35-foot distance between the two. So you’re looking at about a 250-foot square plus a very large 22-foot diameter ductwork coming in and a 26-foot diameter fan stack coming out. This is the size of several football fields put together.”
Are the Designing and Implementation Phases Different for Really Large Systems?
Tristan explained that one of the biggest constraints or considerations with bigger systems is the logistics involved.
“On several of these larger projects, we’ve spent months determining, “Okay, so we have this baghouse that we know is going to be 240 feet long by 80-foot wide, by another 65 foot tall. How do we manufacture and get that to the site? Where is the site located? Is there track accessibility? Are there special road considerations? Is there some kind of small bridge or constraint to get into the site? Are they on a river? Can you barge in materials?”
He pointed out that barging and rail are best-case scenarios because the size of the pieces that can be transported is much greater.
“We’re able to do more of the work in a controlled fabrication facility as opposed to out in the field where we’re usually paying our crews to travel and live on the road. That adds expense and complexity and you lose a layer of control being outdoors working as opposed to inside a fabrication facility. So the larger the piece we’re able to ship in, generally, the better.”
What Challenges Exist During the Installation Phase of a Project?
According to Tristan, one of the biggest installation challenges is inclement weather. Rain, hurricanes, flooding, and extreme cold have all impacted schedules. Another is the logistics of getting the right pieces to the site when needed while refraining from shipping thousands of tons of steel that require warehousing and lay-down systems to track and manage.
“That’s one thing that our project management group does very well: building projects with that just-in-time type delivery,” he says. “If there are any critical pieces coming in, we’re able to deliver them and, ideally, they’ll be picked directly from the truck that’s delivering them and set into position.”
Conclusion
At the conclusion of the discussion, Tristan emphasized the importance of having the right partner in the design and installation process, especially with dust collection systems for greenfield applications.
“Here we are sitting in the first quarter of 2022. What’s on the forefront of everyone’s mind is the global supply chain issues and struggles we’re running into. Choosing the right partner that’s willing to [help you] break down those barriers through some outside the box thinking could certainly help bring any size baghouse project, but especially a large greenfield baghouse, online on time and on budget.”
If you would like to discuss further, leave your thoughts in the comments section below. You can also reach Tristan Trupka directly:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tristan-trupka-899b264/
Website: https://iac-intl.com/
If you have questions about the contents of this or any other podcast episode, you can go to our ‘Questions from the Community’ page and submit a text message or video recording. We will then bring someone on to answer these questions in a future episode.
Resources mentioned
Dust Safety Science
Combustible Dust Incident Database
Dust Safety Science Podcast
Questions from the Community
Dust Safety Academy
Dust Safety Professionals
Dust Safety Share
Companies
IAC
Thanks for Listening!
To share your thoughts:
- Leave a note in the comment section below
- Ask a question to be answered on the show
- Share this episode on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook
To help out the show:
- Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes
- Leave a review and rate our show in iTunes to help the podcast reach more people
