Study of dielectric particles motion in traveling and standing electrostatic waves using particle tracking velocimetry

Abstract

The accumulation of dust and airborne particles on solar panels drastically reduces the quality of the produced energy. A promising solution consists of using traveling and standing electric waves to clean the solar panels or to avoid particle deposition on their surface. This work aims to better understand the motion mechanisms of micrometer-sized particles under the effect of electrostatic traveling and standing waves, by characterizing their displacement velocity using particle tracking velocimetry (PTV). In this experimental work, the particles motion is recorded using a high speed camera. Then, a PTV based post-processing has been carried out to get velocity vectors of individual particles based on Lagrangian approach. The velocity profiles in both and axis have been studied as a function of voltage, frequency, and particle size. The results show that the particles pass through levitation, falling, and acceleration phases during their motion. Increasing the voltage leads to a higher velocity. The small particles are more likely to be trapped in the electric potential wave because they are less affected by gravitational and drag forces. That makes their velocity higher than the bigger ones. The average velocity of particles goes through a maximum as a function of frequency in the forward direction of the traveling wave conveyor, and in both directions of the standing wave conveyor. The maximum displacement velocity in the traveling wave conveyor is higher than that obtained in standing wave one.