A novel device for hydrodynamic separation of inertial particles
POSTER
Abstract
Current methods of particle separation, ranging from filtration devices to cyclones are inadequate in terms of maintenance or precision, respectively. A recent analytical work has shown that inertial particles placed in a flow that is temporally and spatially varying, exhibit extremely different behavior for a slight change in their size. In such flows, particles of a certain size can form cluster whereas particles that are larger in diameter by as low as 1% can disperse. The objective of this study is to employ this phenomenon and design a device that produces a suitable flow for the realization of this phenomenon. In this poster, we describe our numerical method that was developed to produce an initial design. We then demonstrate that the computed geometry is conducive to particle separation by performing CFD simulations. Finally, we predict the operating regime of this device by computing the diameter and density of the particles that can be separated in practice.
*This work was supported by the Stanford Mechanical Engineering Department and the United States Department of Energy at Stanford University.