Characterization of electrohydrodynamic (EHD) flow in electrostatic precitators (ESP) by numerical simulation and quantitative vortex analysis

Abstract

Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) flow is a very common physical phenomenon in industry application, such as corona induced electrical pump and electrostatic precipitator (ESP). There are many available researches reporting investigations of the EHD flow patterns by numerical method and qualitatively analyzing the flow characteristics. In present study, the quantitative method was adopted to analyze EHD flow in different ESP types. This study utilized a hybrid method using the Finite Element Method (FEM) to simulate the ionized electric field and the Finite Volume Method (FVM) to predict the EHD flow in ESP simulation. Based on the validated model, the EHD flow patterns in several widely used types of ESP were investigated numerically. In previous studies, the EHD flow types were qualitatively classified by observing the vortex size and number. In present paper, the corona induced EHD flow was also analyzed quantitatively using the Qkubo-Weiss index. The results show that the flow vorticity was dominant in the area of the vortex center. In the interspace between vortexes, the flow deformation was dominant. The relationship between the EHD flow types and quantitative parameters (such as pressure drop, turbulence intensity and flow vortex index) was studied, too. In future, the concept of quantitative vortex indexes could be utilized in experimental, numerical or theoretical work and it would improve the existing research related to EHD flow.