A CFD STUDY OF PARTICLE FLOWS (PM1, PM10, PM100) IN LOWVOLUME IMPACT SEPARATOR

Abstract

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.