There are different non-idealities related to cloth filters. which are cleaned by jet pulses. The well-known phenomenon of cake compaction causes progressive curves of the pressure drop versus time. Some experiments show degressive shapes of the pressure drop, though. It will be shown, that this behavior can be explained by dividing the filter in segments. Each model segment can have a different cake thickness, whereas the pressure drop of every single segment is the same at any time during filtration. The capacity of this model is pointed out to determine the cake load on existing filters and to simulate unknown operating points.