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Modeling of Drainage in Coalescence Filtration

Andan, Saravanan

Abstract Details

2010, Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, Chemical Engineering.

Pure air/gas is very critical to many industrial applications. Gas streams contain impurities in the form of solid and liquid aerosols in micron and submicron sizes. It is very important to remove these aerosols for protecting our health and environment, improving the reliability of industrial processes and equipments. Among different filters being used, fibrous filters are very effective in removing aerosols in micron-submicron sizes. Important applications include compressed gas cleaning, CCV, HVAC, refineries, breathing apparatus etc. To remove liquid droplets from a gas stream, fibrous filters act as a coalescing medium where smaller droplets merge to form bigger droplets which eventually drain out of the filter with clean gas going to the downstream process.

The performance of a coalescing filter medium depends on many factors like droplet and fiber size, face velocity, gas and liquid properties, liquid accumulation etc. The current work aims at developing a model to determine the liquid accumulation which is otherwise referred as the saturation. Higher the saturation at steady state, higher is the pressure drop which will increase the operating cost.

This dissertation work is divided in to three categories. In the first category, the multiphase equations are solved at steady state with various saturation profiles and determine the filtration performance. The main goal of this part is to check is the saturation is really an important parameter for coalescing filtration. In the second category, the saturation profile is determined using layered filter medium. Several layers of glass fiber filters are arranged in series and challenged with liquid aerosols. The saturation is measured using the weight of the liquid accumulated on each layer. In the third category, the multiphase equation is solved at unsteady state to predict the saturation theoretically. The unsteady state model takes in to account the dominant mechanisms for drop capture, growth and break-up on the media. The proposed mechanisms are droplets on fibers, droplets on drops, sweep and break-up mechanisms. The model evaluates each mechanism on a step-by-step process and updates the number of drops of each size with respect to time and position. Total volume of drops at each position is then calculated to determine saturation with time. The sensitivity of few important parameters towards the final filtration performance is also determined using this model. The model results can be used to determine optimum parameter values to achieve higher efficiency with much less pressure drop.

George Chase, Dr. (Advisor)
Subramaniya Hariharan, Dr. (Advisor)
EDWARD EVANS, PhD (Committee Member)
BI-MIN NEWBY, PhD (Committee Member)
GERALD YOUNG, PhD (Committee Member)
213 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Andan, S. (2010). Modeling of Drainage in Coalescence Filtration [Doctoral dissertation, University of Akron]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1268145371

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Andan, Saravanan. Modeling of Drainage in Coalescence Filtration. 2010. University of Akron, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1268145371.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Andan, Saravanan. "Modeling of Drainage in Coalescence Filtration." Doctoral dissertation, University of Akron, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1268145371

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)