A CFD STUDY OF PARTICLE FLOWS (PM1, PM10, PM100) IN LOW-VOLUME IMPACT SEPARATOR

• Main Authors: Pannita Phirommark, Chakrit Suvanjumrat, Watcharapong Chookaew, Sakchai Uapipatanakul, Machimontorn Promtong
• Other Authors: Mahidol University
• Format: Article
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: Agricultural and Biological Sciences; Earth and Planetary Sciences; Engineering; Environmental Science
• Online Access: https://repository.li.mahidol.ac.th/handle/123456789/73060

Concerns around PM2.5 mean that discovering the number of soot particles and their size in ambient air is essential for general public health, so this research studies small particle flow behavior when separated by a low-volume impact separator. A Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methodology was introduced to analyze the particle flow, and a simulation, where the actual operating flow rates and considered particle sizes were adopted as the initial conditions and material properties was performed. The flow pattern and particle's path inside the separator were numerically observed, and the performance in terms of the residence time and the trapped percentage was mainly discussed. The simulation results show that air velocity influenced particle traces and their distribution in the separator PM10 head, significantly smaller (PM1 and PM10). The residence time and the number of separated particles were used to evaluate the performance. Regarding the simulation results, after 5 seconds, the percentages of PM1, PM10, and PM100 could be escaped out of the PM2.5 Size Sorting Point about 44.2%, 37.6%, and 0%, respectively. In future work, a validation study will be performed, and the effects of internal structures that could affect the separator's performance will be investigated further. In addition, particle aggregations caused by flow vorticities that could cause dispersions will mainly be elucidated.