Browsing by Author "Apevienyeku, Holali Kwami"

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    Design, Manufacture and Test a Nose/Mouth filter for use during the Harmattan
    (May, 2016) Apevienyeku, Holali Kwami
    The Harmattan is characterized by massive suspension and deposition of large quantity of Sahara soil dust particles (density 2,650 kg/m3 and diameter 2 0.5 m) in West Africa during the months of November to March each year (Sunnu, 2006). Inhalation of the dust aerosols has been shown to cause adverse effects on human respiratory systems. Even though there are a lot of imported respirators in the local market which are used for various purposes, there is none designed specifically for the Harmattan dust. The purpose of this study is to design, manufacture and test a mouth/nose filter (mechanical respirator) for use during the Harmattan period. To achieve this objective of filtering the dust aerosols, four (4) different locally made filters were tested using an experimental test rig set up to simulate the inhalation of the Harmattan dust. The test was carried out at a constant flow rate of where the salient filter design parameters such as pressure drop, penetration, efficiency and quality factor were observed. The results suggest that the tri-ply of calico, felt and twill is appropriate to be used as mouth/nose filter for the Harmattan dust particles owing to the fact that it had the highest efficiency of 80%, the lowest aerosol penetration of 20%, a pressure drop of 47.67 Pa and a filter quality of 0.0337.