Semi-analytical and computational investigation of different fibrous structures affecting the performance of fibrous media

Three arrangement types of fibrous media have been established including “Mesh” (layered distribution), “Para” (unidirectional distribution), and “Nurbs” (random distribution), with fiber diameters ranging from 5 to 7 µm and solid volume fractions ranging from 14.58% to 21.95%. To describe the filtration performance, particles trajectories, and the influence of structural parameters of fibrous media, the computation fluid dynamics is adopted. The filtration efficiency and the pressure drop of fibrous media are calculated in computation fluid dynamics and semi-analytical model. It is found that the arrangement types have significant effects on the filtration efficiency and show the limitation of the semi-analytical model. With the Stokes number larger than 1, the numerical results and semi-analytical model have great consistency in the filtration efficiency for the “Mesh” and “Para” types than “Nurbs” type. Meanwhile, the pressure drop between the numerical results and the semi-analytical model is always consistent.