Abstract
A push pull hood system is frequently applied to control contaminants evaporated from an open surface tank. Efficiency of push pull hood system is affected by various parameters, such as, cross draft, vessel shapes, tank surface area, liquid temperature. A previous work assisted by flow visualization technique qualitatively showed that a strong cross draft blown from the pull hood to push slot could destroy a stable wall-jet on the surface of tank, resulting in the abrupt escape of smoke from the surface. In this study, the tracer gas method was applied to determine the effect of cross-draft on the capture efficiency qualitatively. A new concept of capture efficiency was introduced, that is, linear efficiency. This can be determined by measuring the mass of tracer gas in the duct of pull hood while the linear tracer source is in between push slot and pull hood. By traversing the linear tracer source from the push slot to the pull hood, it can be found where the contaminant is escaped from the tank. Total capture efficiency can be determined by averaging the linear efficiencies. Under the condition of cross-draft velocities of 0, 0.4, 0.75, 1.05 and 1.47m/s, total capture efficiencies were measured as 97.6, 95.4, 94.6, 92.7 and 70.5% respectively. The abrupt reduction of efficiency with cross-draft velocity of 1.47m/s was due to the destruction of tank surface wall-jet by the counter-current cross-draft. The same phenomenon was observed in the previous flow visualization study. As an alternative to overcome this abrupt efficiency drop, the 20% increase of hood flow rates was tested, resulting in 20% efficiency increase.
