Historical Review of Pneumatic Conveying and Solids Processing World Wide

George E. Klinzing
University of Pittsburgh
Trying to determine just when the first pneumatic conveying system was designed and
built is a bit of a challenge. In the process of forming the organization Conveying and Handling
of Particulate Systems (CHoPS), Haim Kalman made reference to solids handling in the Bible.
The late Ming Leung often would say nothing could beat the age and historical significance of
the ancient Chinese culture. We can accept these claims but with the printed page references can
be made about 150 years of history. One of the earliest to be cited is a case of grain unloading
from ships in Russia. The German history can point back to the early 1920s following the
intense study of fluid dynamics that occurred some 10 to 20 years earlier. Looking back further
in 1785 an account appeared Scientific American on the analysis of a dust explosion in the
handling of flour at a flour mill in Turin, Italy. Reading this account one is struck by how ideal
the conditions were noted for the perfect storm for the occurrence of a dust explosion.
The beginning of rather modern pneumatic conveying and solids processing began about
the same time in Japan and Germany in the late 1950s through the 1960s followed by activity
in the United States. Before the 1950s one researcher and practitioner was Gasterstadt (1923)
who did some very basic studies in pneumatic conveying. His results of the pressure drop
linearity with flow rate for dilute solid flow was the first flow meter of its kind. In addition he
did some pneumatic conveying studies of 100 m long horizontal pipe.
In Japan Professor Inoya at Nagoya University assembled a team of students to begin to
address the challenging area of solids processing from all levels. His lab produced many of the
researchers in this field throughout Japan for the next 20 years or more. In fact it was
challenging for other Japanese researcher who did not have the Nagoya stamp to get recognition.
In pneumatic conveying Professor Morikawa of Osaka University began to research pneumatic
conveying and added a well known student to his research tear, Yukata (Tak) Tsuji. Morikawa
and Tsuji did many projects together mostly experimental.
Professor Tsuji followed Professor Morikawa as the Principal Professor at Osaka and
since has retired being following by Professor Tanaka his student. They have produced a large
volume of students who are world renown in the modeling and simulations area of solid
processing and pneumatic conveying. After retirement from Osaka, Professor Tsuji became the
technical director of the Hosokawa Research Foundation. Recently he stepped down from that
position.

In Japan there were a few other hot spots of pneumatic conveying research. Professor
Tomita of Kyushu Institute of Technology contributed extensively to the literature. Professor
Tashiro was a student of his and his now at Kurume Technical University. I have had the
pleasure of Professor visiting in my laboratory for his sabbatical.
At the large Nihon University Professor Ochi has done pneumatic conveying research.
He also spent a summer research sabbatical in my laboratory. He returned to Japan and along
with his research became the Dean of the School of Engineering at Nihon University.
At Kyoto University Professor Masuda concentration on trying to understand the
electrostatic phenomena that occurs in pneumatic conveying. He did some very basic work and
also has explored measurement devices and flow measurement in pneumatic conveying.
In Germany the solids processing concept and its study began with Professor Rumpf of
Karlsruhe University along with other senior colleagues especially Professor Barth who
concentrated his studies in pneumatic conveying provide a rich source of students in solid
processing. Almost all of the researchers in this solids processing through 1960s to 1990s
came out of Karlsruhe. Many of the existing researchers can also trace their academic lineage
back to Karlsruhe.
Professor Barths untimely death did not stop the research machine from going and
researchers such Lothar Reh, Farid Rizk, Karl Sommer, Edgar Muschelknautz, Wolfgang
Krambrock, Manfred Weber, Matthias Bohnet came from this lineage.
Other notable from Karlsruhe who populated Europes elite of solids processing were
Kurt Leschonski, Sunil DiSilva, Klaus Schonert, Hans Loeffler, Otto Molerus, and Jorg
Schwedes.
The Karlsruhe group spread throughout Europe taking professorships or senior research positions
in industry. Many started in industry and then moved on to universities.
Leschonski Clausthal Technical University
DeSilva Postgrun Institute in Norway
Molerus University of Erlangen
Rizk BASF
Somers Munich Technical University
Muschelknautz University of Stuttgart
Weber Karlsruhe University
Bohnet Braunschweig Technical University
Sommer Technical University of Munich
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Krambrock Waschle, Zeppelin

In the U.S. the first developments in pneumatic conveying came out of Fred Zenz who
did some very creative experiment work with a simple vacuum cleaner. The Zenz plots of
pressure drop versus gas flowrates have been named after him. His book with Othmer on
Fluidization and Fluid Particle Systems from 1960 is a classic.
Much of the U.S. work did not come out of one font as was in Germany with Karlsruhe.
With the importance of energy and coal, fluidizations studies were plentiful and many industrial
companies and research organization developed extensive expertise in this field which is
ancillary to pneumatic conveying. The work of Wen-Ching Yang of Westinghouse and Ted
Knowlton at GRI and later PSRI are most noteworthy. Novel and creative experiments and
devices were developed being placed almost immediately on the industrial scale. Expertise
developed in the solids processing and fluidization area at Exxon, Texaco, Shell and others.
Amrit Agrawal from Union Carbide was their resident expert in pneumatic conveying design
with a specialty in dilute phase transport. Dow Chemical developed similar expertise under the
leadership of Karl Jacob and Shrikant Dhodapkar.
The area of consulting engineering cannot be forgotten when it comes to pneumatic
conveying. Paul Solt after many years with Fuller Company carried out extensive testing on a
wide variety of materials and designs. Presently he is teamed with Jack Hilbert in having
webinars through the magazine Bulk Solids Engineering. Paul Solts Point to Ponder in the
same magazine is classic with series now being sold separately. Solt did extensive short course
offerings with the Center for Professional Development, AICHE and the University of
Wisconsin. Jenike Johanson is now also offering consulting services in pneumatic conveying.
As I mentioned before the field of pneumatic conveying did not spring from a single
source but had a variety of different researchers at universities approach the topic. E. Michalides
did some interesting work on the solids friction factors. Charlie (Shiao Lin) Soo developed
unique mathematical analyses for pneumatic conveying with a heavy emphasis of electrostatic
generation. Jennifer Sinclair Curtis now at the University of Florida probed both simulation and
modeling proficiencies as well as experimental verification in her work.
Australia had a significant effect on the verification and usage of large scale test facilities
and design. Peter Arnold at the University of Wollongong began this work and was always in
close communication with Alan Roberts of Newcastle University. Alan specialized in bin and
hopper design as well as mechanical transport with belt conveyors. Peter Wypych who studied
with Peter Arnold moved the progress forward in large scale pneumatic conveying. He always
has real data and real experiments when it comes to pneumatic conveying. Peter Wypych guided
a number of very talented students in his laboratory, Bo Mi and Renfu Pan come quickly to
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mind. Dr. Pan has returned to China and leading a larger effort in China at this time. About 15
to 20 years ago Newcastle University made an attractive offer to Mark Jones who was then with
the Stan Mason group at Caledonia University in Glasgow, Scotland. Others than worked
closely with the Mason group were Mark joined the Alan Roberts team and carried on what had
initially been done by John Chambers to become a real force not only in Australia but around the
world. He has had a number of gifted students in Ken Williams and Toby Krull. It is unusual
not to see this group at the international conferences on pneumatic conveying around the world.
In Great Britain in the early 1970s Stan Mason developed a strong pneumatic conveying
facility and expertise at Thames Polytechnic in London. He attracted David Mills as a student
who later developed into a trusted colleague in pneumatic conveying. David has published
widely and lectures often. He has had a close collaboration with Dr. Agarwal in India in the
transport of fly ash. Alan Reed also was part of the Thames group and took a real leadership
role in research and administration later moving to Greenwich University where he works
closely with Mike Bradley. They have a large consultancy that goes under the name of the
Wolfson Group. While in Scotland, Stan Mason attracted two researchers who developed some
interesting basic concepts in measurements in pneumatic conveying: Don McGlinchey and John
Pugh. They continue to develop novel flow measurements devices.
At Cambridge University in Great Britain Professor Ronald Nedderman supervised a
very talented student, Ken Konrad, in theoretical and experimental analysis of dense phase
conveying using the basic principles of soil mechanics. There work is classic and the real
beginning to the basic understanding of dense phase flow. Ken Konrad moved to Virginia Tech
to teach and then moved to Exxon changing fields somewhat. Lyn Bates is a well know
consultant from Great Britain but his expertise is used widely around the world.
South Africa came into the pneumatic conveying realm with a great force in moving large
quantities of solids through large pipelines over long distances. Roy Marcus began this effort
through his dissertation work and continued on with a faculty position in Mechanical
Engineering at Witwatersrand University. The mining industry and the coal conversion activities
of Sasol supplied a rich variety of challenges problems in pneumatic conveying. Marcus
supervised about a dozen students who went on to continue in the field making contributions to
industry and academia. The most successful ones were Steve Meijer with Bateman and John
Sheer who now is on the faculty at Witwatersrand after working for a gold mining company.
Unusual applications of pneumatic conveying were seen in carrying ice and diamonds. Presently
there is a small amount of work going on at Wits and the University of Johannesburg.
A little later in the time line researcher in Israel began to explore the intricacies of
pneumatic conveying lead by Professor Haim Kalman. There were other researchers in two
phase flow system in Israel who approached the topic in a fundamental basic analysis such as
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Professor Hetroni. Haim spurred on his research to attrition and wear and produced a number of
students who advances these topics but blossomed into other avenues such as Avi Levy who took
the modeling and simulation torch further in a very aggressive manner. Haim questioned the
basic premises on which most of pneumatic conveying is built and examined previous data
assiduously. Through this kind of approach he was able to develop some generalized correlations
based on fundamental parametric analysis.
Website for the article and associated Photos.
http://www.engineering.pitt.edu/GeorgeKlinzing/