Experimental study of the flow through a scale model of a particulate filter channel

Abstract

The aim of this research project model, is to gain a better understanding of the flow characteristics within automotive particulate filters, as the behaviour of the flow within the automotive particulate filter is not well understood. There is no sufficient experimental data regarding the characteristics of the flow within an individual channel of the particulate filter, therefore as a part of this project an experimental program is developed to scale up a typical filter channel to gain a better understanding of the internal flow. The experimental results will help lay a solid foundation for the development of improved macroscopic models. The pressure behaviour changes from one porous wall to another (15%, 20%, and 37%), this was expected. Also, it was noticed that the relation between porosity and pressure drop is inversely proportional, the higher the porosity (37%), the lower the pressure drop, and the flow closely approaching a system with no wall. However, when the porosity is low (15%, and 20%), the dynamic pressure has smaller influence on the wall flow, as it is a smaller fraction of the total pressure drop, and hence the flow is less biased towards the end of the channel. It was found that with porous wall of (15%), the pressure dropincreasedbyalmost20%ofthatwiththeporouswallof20%,andapproximately,40%ofthat with the porous wall of 37%. Furthermore, multiple jets were recorded close to the porous wall, and the velocity profiles across the porous plate, develops from 20Dp-30Dp, which was expected from a free jet flow. The average Reynolds number throughout the porous plate of 15% was approximately 1.5 greater than the average Reynolds number with 20% porous plate at maximum flow rate used. Also, the average Reynolds number throughout the porous plate of 20% was approximately 1.05 greater than the average Reynolds number with 37% porous plate at maximum flow rate used. It was also noted down, that with the lowest mass flow rate, the average Reynolds number throughout the porous plate of 15%, was approximately 1.3 greater than the average Reynolds number with porous plate of 20%. At last, the average Reynolds number throughout the porous wall of 20%, was 1.2 greater than the average Reynolds number with 37% porous wall.

Date of Award	2018
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Coventry University
Supervisor	Humberto Medina (Supervisor), Svetlana Aleksandrova (Supervisor) & Stephen Benjamin (Supervisor)