Parallel multiphysics simulation of the separation of oppositely charged particles in fluid flow in a bisecting micro-channel due to an electric field imposed by charged surfaces.

Example setup for separation of oppositely charged particles with radius 80µm and homogeneous charge of 6.4e-15 As.

The separation results from an electric field with strength 80kV/m due to partially charged bottom and top plane.

The particles are randomly inserted into the flow that has an inflow velocity of 1mm/s in a bifurcating micro-channel of total size 2.56mm x 7.68mm x 192mm.

The multiphysics simulation was performed in waLBerla with the two-relaxation-time lattice Boltzmann method for the fluid flow,

coupled to the physics engine pe for rigid body dynamics simulation via a momentum exchange approach.

The electric potential was simulated in waLBerla by means of a seamlessly integrated geometric multigrid solver.

To correctly recover the forces between the particles and walls in close proximity, lubrication correction was performed.

More details on this lattice Boltzmann based simulation are given in the paper https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jocs.2015.02.006

Further information can be found at https://www10.cs.fau.de

By : Dominik Bartuschat