What Is an Air to Cloth Ratio and Why Do I Care?

An air to cloth ratio explained

All dust collection revolves primarily around air-to-cloth ratios, or the amount of air being sucked through a square foot of filter media. If the improper air to cloth ratio is used, a dust collector can go from a normal average filter change interval of 2 years to 2 days. That is a huge difference and why the amount of square footage in every filter cartridge is critical as well as the type of media.

For example, in a typical dust collection job, we might see a manufacturer recommend a two to one air to cloth, or 2:1 ratio. So, let's say the application requires 4000 CFM of airflow. At a 2:1 air to cloth ratio, that would require 2000 square foot of filter media (4000/2=2000). A typical industrial cartridge has around 250 square feet of media, so that would mean they need 8 filters (2000/250 sf= 8 filters).

Take the same scenario, but let's assume the application goes to something more extreme like a high-speed plasma cutter running 24 hours a day. Most manufactures would recommend something closer to a 1:1 air to cloth ratio to be able to keep up with the amount of dust, the sticky nature of the dust and still be able to self-clean the cartridge. So, running the same 4000 CFM of airflow at a 1:1 air to cloth would require 4000 square foot of filter media or 16 cartridge filters (4000/250 sf=16 cartridges).

You should care about an air to cloth ratio

What happens if we undersize the amount of square footage in filter media? In short, the filters won’t last as long. How long depends on your application, but that is why you need to rely on Filter Junkie to make sure we properly cross reference the OEM filter specifications. You want to make sure you are getting good quality filters that actually last that is why knowing the air to cloth ratio is so important.

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