In order to investigate the influence of filtering operation and surface treatment on cleaning performance of filter bags, a series of experiments was carried out on a semi-industrial pulse-jet baghouse, using peak pulse pressure and fabric acceleration as indices to evaluate the cleaning effect. The innovative aspect of this paper is to investigate the difference of cleaning mechanism and cleaning effect along the length of filter bags by using three filter bags (untreated filter bag, used-time filter bag and the PTFE membrane filter bag) with different surface treatments. The experimental results show that the cleaning mechanism at the top of the three filter bags is governed by fabric acceleration due to sudden filter media movement, while the peak pulse pressure plays a major role in the lower part of the three filter bags. However, the top of a filter bag was always difficult to clean, mainly owing to the negative-pressure produced by the high-velocity primary jet. According to the analysis of acceleration curve, it is suggested that the vibration frequency of acceleration can be used as an index to evaluate the cleaning effect of a filter bag. Furthermore, the used-time filter bag has better cleaning effect than the untreated filter bag, and the cleaning performance of the PTFE membrane filter bag is the best in this study. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.