• Particle and aerosol research
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.103-110
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• 2013

The electrostatic precipitator (ESP) has been used for degrading atmospheric pollutants. These devices induce the electrical forces to facilitate the removal of particulate pollutants. The ions travel from the high voltage electrode to the grounded electrode by Coulomb force induced by the electric field when a high voltage is applied between two electrodes. The ions collide with gas molecules and exchange momentum with each other thus inducing fluid motion, electrohydrodynamic (EHD) flow. In this study, for the simulation of electric field and EHD flow in ESPs, an open source EHD solver, "espFoam", has been developed using open source CFD toolbox, OpenFOAM(R) (Open Field Operation and Manipulation). The electric potential distribution and ionic space charge density distribution were obtained with the developed solver, and validated with experimental results in the literature. The comparison results showed good agreement. Turbulence model is also incorporated to simulate turbulent flow; hence the developed solver can analyze laminar and turbulent flow. In distributions of electric potential and space charge, the distributions become distorted and asymmetric as the flow velocity increases. The effect of electrical drift flow was investigated for different flow velocities and the secondary flow in a flow of low velocity is successfully predicted.