AAAR 33rd Annual Conference
October 20 - October 24, 2014
Rosen Shingle Creek
Orlando, Florida, USA
Abstract View
Alignment of Aerosolized Glass Fibers by an Applied Electric Field
Bon Ki Ku, C.S. Lauber, G. J. DEYE, Leonid Turkevich, NIOSH
Abstract Number: 607 Working Group: Aerosol Physics
Abstract Dielectrophoretic alignment is the presumed physical basis for length separation of fibers as effected in the Baron Fiber Classifier. In this study, we have investigated directly the alignment of glass fibers in an electric field. Glass fibers are aerosolized by vortex shaking; the aerosol passes through a cylindrical (asbestos sampling) cassette and is collected on an MCE filter. The cassette is outfitted with a parallel plate capacitor, so that the aerosol flows in the gap between and parallel to the plates (i.e. perpendicular to the electric field). The collected fibers are strongly oriented parallel to the imposed electric field. The angular orientation distribution is measured as a function of aerosol humidity and charge state of the fibers: i) as aerosolized, ii) Boltzmann distribution of neutralized fibers, iii) ESP neutralized fibers. The changes in the angular distribution with aerosol conditions suggest possible microscopic mechanisms responsible for the fiber alignment.