AAAR 37th Annual Conference October 14 - October 18, 2019 Oregon Convention Center Portland, Oregon, USA
Abstract View
An Experimental Study on Airflow Patterns of Pleated Filters by Using the PIV Method
QINGFENG CAO, Seungkoo Kang, David Y. H. Pui, University of Minnesota
Abstract Number: 710 Working Group: Control and Mitigation Technology
Abstract Pleated filters are widely used for industrial and residential applications. Their filtration efficiency is highly related to the airflow fields. An experimental method has been developed for measuring the flow patterns passing through pleated filters by using the Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) method, which is an optical approach for instantaneous flow visualizations and velocity measurements. In the current experimental study, flow patterns and pressure drop across pleated filters with various pleat configurations of different flow regimes have been measured under our laboratory setup. Velocity and vorticity contours at both the upstream and downstream regions of the flow field were obtained. It was found that the pleat geometry impacts the downstream flow pattern more significantly than the upstream flow pattern. The obtained downstream flow distributions indicate lower permeability at the pleat tip region than the rest of the filter media, so that air tends to pass through the sides of the filter pleats instead of the pleat tip region. By increasing the pleat number, we discovered that when pleat geometry stays unchanged, similarity exists among downstream flow patterns of the pleated filters with different pleat numbers.