Abstract
Ultrasound-assisted processing of particulate phase in a host fluid relies on the induced acoustic force field. Understanding the agglomeration phenomenon in the particulate phase under acoustic forces will provide better insight about the acoustophoresis quality and a way to design a well-controlled process. In this work, a dynamic model consisting of acoustic and hydrodynamic forces is proposed for tracking the motion of micro-spheres under ultrasound fields with planar and non-planar wave fronts. The agglomeration of particles at the nodal plane was simulated taking into account the contact and collisions between spheres. The numerical simulations were conducted for both sound hard and compressible spheres to investigate the behaviors of single and multiple-phase particle populations. For the case of a plane standing-wave, the interaction between solid-bubble allows the solid particles to stay at the velocity node which is their unstable equilibrium location. With a Bessel standing wave as a non-planar pressure field, the agglomeration patterns of particles are generally different from the case of plane standing wave, which implies the significance of the particle tracking simulations for predicting the agglomeration patterns and locations under ultrasound fields with arbitrary wave fronts.
Published Version
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