Air cleaners are used in a wide range of automotive applications. From passenger cars to heavy duty trucks, there is always an air cleaner to keep inlet air free of impurities and air flow passage obstruction in low levels. Today's automotive air intake systems are developed to deliver maximum filtration efficiency, maximum dust holding capacity and maximum service interval range based on engine performance and reliability requirements [1].
In Brazil, some applications require outstanding performance for the air cleaners. One of them is at harvester application. In this case, vehicles are exposed to thin soil particles in high quantities due to harvester movement at plantation work. At the same time, engine performance needs to be kept during long journeys. According to this limitation, re-fuelling and components replacements are done direct at field. Any vehicle stop means lower productivity and more costs.
This paper studies the influence of multicyclones application at a harvester air cleaner system. Its compact size summed to high contaminant retention capacity improves usual air cleaner systems performance to longer service intervals with reduced pressure drop. Improvements on technology performance were demonstrated through numerical simulations and laboratory tests that simulate the actual application.