AAAR 34th Annual Conference
October 12 - October 16, 2015
Hyatt Regency
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Abstract View
Novel Aerosol Particle Image Velocimetry Measurement Method for Rotating Drum Systems
Kelly Brinkley, Jonathan Eshbaugh, DANIEL SIMON, Michael House, The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory
Abstract Number: 483 Working Group: Environmental Fate of Infectious Aerosols
Abstract The fate of a biological aerosol released into the outdoor environment is uncertain. The viability, chemical composition, and physical properties of a biological aerosol may be altered in reactions with volatile organic compounds (VOC), ozone, solar irradiance, or water vapor. Reactions between a biological aerosol and environmentally relevant chemical components are often time, concentration, and temperature dependent. In the laboratory, larger aerosol particles stay suspended within a typical chamber for a limited amount of time making the study of slow reactions challenging. Previous researchers have increased the aerosol suspension time by using rotating drums. However, the physics of particulate suspensions inside rotating drums are poorly understood. Models of particle dynamics do not agree with experimental observations and observations of aerosol behavior have been limited to flow altering point measurements of particle concentrations. As a result of these deficiencies, experimental planning, test execution, and data analysis are currently conducted using gross approximations of aerosol behavior and extrapolations from previous tests. A novel technique using a Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) system has been employed to measure the aerosol particle positions, trajectories, and concentrations within a model rotating drum system. Since the PIV system measurements minimally disrupt the aerosol suspending rotational flow, aerosol suspension decay rates can be accurately measured in real-time. The PIV measurement method can be used to validate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations to accurately predict size dependent particle suspension behavior to aid in the design of new rotating drum systems, optimize the use of current systems, and inform the design of experiments. The PIV method and preliminary data will be discussed.