Monte Carlo model for particle resuspension phenomena

BENITO, J.G.; UÑAC, R.O.; IPPOLITO, I.; VIDALES, A M

Santiago de Chile

Workshop; Southern Workshop on Granular Materials 2015, Santiago de Chile; 2015

Resuspension phenomena correspond to the process in which deposited particles on a surface are ?detached? from it through a given mechanism. Resuspension is present in a wide range of fields, such as airborne particles, reentraiment of sediments, human health, filtration systems and food industry. In particular, industrial applications involveobtaining perfectly clean surfaces for micro and nanoelectronic technology. Besides, the problem of resuspension causes serious difficulties in mining production and is essential in the study of radioactive particles released to the environment during nuclear accidents.In this work we present a simulation model based on the Monte Carlo (MC) method to describe the resuspension of particles deposited on a flat surface by the action of a turbulent air flow. The resuspension probability is evaluated from a balance between the moments of adhesion and the aerodynamic forces acting on each particle. Adhesionforces between particles and surface respond to a log-normal distribution, while the forces due to air flow follow agaussian distribution.We perform a detailed comparison between the results obtained from this MC model with different previous experimental results. Despite its simplicity, we found that this model has a high capacity to describe the observed behavior of the resuspended particles fraction as a function of the air velocity. Finally, we discuss the model advantages and its ability to complement others existing models by incorporating the stochastic nature of the process.