Deposition of charged particles in a channel

Abstract

Deposition of particles in a parallel-plate channel under the influence of inertia, viscous, gravity and electrostatic image forces was studied using a trajectory method. A laminar fluid flow of uniform and fully-developed velocity profiles is assumed and the fluid is suspended with particles having the same velocity as the fluid at the inlet plane. A trajectory method was employed to find the trajectory of each particle entering the channel. The governing equations were solved with the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method. Depositions were calculated based on the distance for a particle to reach the wall. The deposition increases with increasing gravity effect and image force effect. The image force effects dominate the flow when the ratio of the charge parameter Q to the gravity parameter G is greater than 5 and diminishes when the ratio is less than 0.001. The inertia force increases with increasing particle size and results in higher deposition while the viscous force decreases the deposition. The uniform flow gives higher deposition than the fully-developed flow.