Mechanisms of Particle Deposition in Ventilation Ducts for a Food Factory

Abstract

An improved Eulerian model is proposed to predict particle deposition velocity in a typical mechanical ventilation system of a dairy food factory. For fully developed turbulent flow, the model is modified based on the three-layer model developed by Zhao and Wu (2006a), accounting for thermophoresis as well as turbophoresis, Brownian diffusion, turbulent diffusion, and gravitational settling. Based on in-situ measurements of the aerosol size distributions, particles discussed in this article were in the size range 0.3–20 μm. The measured mass concentration and the predicted particle deposition velocity were used to calculate the deposited particle mass flux in the ventilation duct. The results indicate that the effects of temperature gradients and of surface roughness should be considered in food factories ventilation ducts. For horizontal surfaces, it is shown that even a little difference between empirical and theoretical models can lead to a 2-fold difference in the predicted deposited particle mass flu...