Numerical Simulation of Nanoparticle Coagulation in a Poiseuille Flow Via a Moment Method*

Numerical simulations of coagulating nano-scale aerosols in a two dimensional Poiseuille flow between fixed plates are performed. Evolution of the particle field is obtained by utilizing a moment method to approximate the aerosol general dynamic equation. A moment method is used, which assumes a lognormal function for the particle size distribution and requires knowledge of the first three moments. A Damköhler number is defined to represent the ratio of the convection time scale to the coagulation time scale. Simulations are performed based on three Reynolds numbers, 100, 500 and 1000, and on three initial particle volume fractions corresponding to Damköhler numbers 0.1, 0.2 and 1.0. Spatio-temporal evolution of the first three moments along with the geometric mean volume and standard deviation are discussed.