From highly specialised to generally available modelling of shear induced particle migration for flow segregation based separation technology

Unfortunately, the underlying mechanisms of particle migration are not that well understood, and contradicting results are reported in literature. There is clearly a need for a unifying approach that can be used by many; therefore, we developed a CFD computer model that can readily be used, unlike the rather inaccessible computer models that are mostly reported in literature. We focus on particle-particle interactions of monodisperse suspensions in flow, for which we added momentum terms to the general momentum equation. We found amongst others that due to shear induced diffusion the particle volume fraction will be 1.7 times higher at the centre of the channel compared to the channel wall for a bulk particle volume fraction of 50%. Our results describe the experimental results, obtained under similar ideal conditions, to a high level of detail. Our findings are also in reasonable agreement with other modelling and experimental studies from literature, and the discrepancies are most probably due to non-ideal behaviour in the experiments and different approaches used in the models. The big advantage of using this software is that the model can be adapted readily by researchers not specifically trained in modelling or programming, but even more importantly, particle migration can now be used as a starting point in separation design since parameter and geometry studies will take less effort using this software.