Simulation of flow characteristics for filters designed with a non-stochastic lattice structure fabricated via additive manufacturing

Hasib, Hazman and Rennie, Allan Edward Watson and Burns, Neil and Geekie, Louise (2015) Simulation of flow characteristics for filters designed with a non-stochastic lattice structure fabricated via additive manufacturing. In: 14th Rapid Design, Prototyping & Manufacturing Conference (RDPM2015), 2015-12-152015-12-16, Loughborough Design School, Loughborough University.

Abstract

The utilisation of additive manufactured non-stochastic lattice structures for filtration applications is an emerging application. This study describes the development of disc filters with layers of repeated 1.8 mm lattice unit cell as the filter mesh. Velocity, flow, and pressure analysis is performed on ANSYS CFX simulation results of filters with three different thicknesses (1-layer, 2-layer, and 3-layer), at eight different inlet velocities (3.32 m/s, 3.58 m/s, 3.85 m/s, 4.11 m/s, 4.38 m/s, 4.64 m/s, 4.91 m/s and 5.17 m/s). Comparisons are made with the results from perforated plates with circular and square apertures of similar size. The results show that the pressure drop of the lattice filters is substantially lower than the perforated plates’. These findings indicate that several layers of lattice mesh could be used in disc filters to increase filtration efficiency with minimal pressure drop.