The effect of the granulometric composition of beech chips from a CNC machining center on the environmental separation technique

The aim of the paper is to determine the granulometric composition of chip removed from the beech lumber milling process using a CNC machining center SCM Tech Z5 in the range of commonly used technical and technological parameters under standard conditions of feed speed: vf = 1 ÷ 5 m.min-1 and the thickness of the removed layer: e = 1, 3 and 5 mm. Another goal of the paper was to select a suitable separation technique that would be sufficient to effectively capture the largest possible dispersion of fractions in the beech lumber milling process. Granulometric analysis showed that under the given conditions in the milling process the largest proportion of coarse and medium coarse fraction is formed and particles with a size smaller than 32 μm are not formed. For this reason, it is our recommendation to choose a combination of dry mechanical separators together with fabric filters, as mechanical separators are able to capture mainly larger particle fractions. Fabric filters would serve to trap any finer particles, thus saving the user from greater wear of the coarse and medium coarse fractions, which would increase the wear of the filter cloth to an increased extent