Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation of Aerosol Deposition by Interception

YINGJIE TANG (1), Bing Guo (1)

(1) Texas A&M University, College Station

     Abstract Number: 456
     Last modified: May 12, 2010

Abstract
Aerosol collection by interception occurs due to the finite size of particles. Commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) programs generally do not provide direct information about interception. User defined functions have been used to account for interception. However, these methods are not amenable to validation and adoption by the research community, partly due to the private nature of the user defined functions. In this study, new methods were developed to account for interception in aerosol flows. Aerosol deposition by interception was simulated, utilizing standard functions of two commercial CFD programs. The simulation was carried out for a wire screen model and a filter model. Air velocity up to 1.2 m/s and particle aerodynamic diameter up to 20 micrometers were used. The simulation results showed that interception may account for up to 16.0% of the total aerosol depositions in CFD simulation. The simulation results agreed well with commonly used correlations for single fiber efficiency. The methods developed in this study eliminates the need for user defined functions to account for interception; it can be readily validated and adopted by researchers in the field.