Building and Environment 202 (2021) 108015

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Building and Environment

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Pressure drop model for fibrous media in depth filtration: Coupling

simulation of microstructure and CFD porous media during dust loading
Bowen Cao a, Fuping Qian b, *, Mengmeng Ye a, Yuan Guo c, Shilong Wang a, Jinli Lu a,
Yunlong Han a
a
School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Anhui University of Technology, Ma’anshan, 243002, China
b
School of Energy and Environment, Anhui University of Technology, Ma’anshan, Anhui, 243002, China
c
MayAir Technology (China) Co., Ltd., Nanjing, 211111, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The micro-scale model of fibrous media was simulated to obtain viscous resistance in clean state, which was
Fibrous media provided to the CFD porous media. A macro-scale model for predicting the pressure drop during dust loading was
CFD porous Media established based on the Euler-Lagrangian method by implementing the UDF in ANSYS-Fluent. The trapping
Pressure drop
mechanism programs were developed to realize different distribution forms of particles in the porous media. The
Dust loading
macro-empirical model was used to calibrate the macro-scale model under different SVFs. The 592*592*292-4
Coupling simulation
V–F9 filter was simplified to CFD porous media and the numerical simulation was carried out during dust
loading. The results show that the pressure drop shows different growth trends under different trapping mech­
anism programs. Very good agreement was found between the experimental and simulated pressure drop during
dust loading. Thus, the macro-scale model broadens the way of studying the pressure drop of fibrous media in
depth filtration.

1. Introduction Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). In general, the micro-scale model

Particulate matter (PM) in the atmosphere is the main cause of
human respiratory diseases. At the same time, advanced industries such
as electronics, medical treatment and biology have great demand for
high cleanliness environment [1,2]. At the same time, many countries in
the world have increasingly strict regulations on particulate matter
emissions [3]. The air filter standard of the People’s Republic of China
(GB/T 14295–2019) mentioned that with the continuous accumulation
of dust in the process of use, when the resistance increases to the “final
resistance”, the filter reaches its service life. Among then, the fiber filter
is a cost-effective particulate filtering equipment. However, it still has
many performance shortcomings, including high air resistance and low
particulate-holding capacity [4–7]. Therefore, it is very important to
study the change of pressure drop of fiber filter with the amount of
deposited particles to reduce the operation energy consumption, opti­
mize the filtration process and improve the service life [8–10].
Over the past few decades, it has been very popular to use computer
technology to perform three-dimensional reconstruction of fiber filter,
and to investigate the filtration performance during dust loading using
of fiber filter can be divided into single fiber and fibrous media. In terms
of single fiber, Hosseini et al. [11] adopted user defined function (UDF)
to enhance the standard discrete phase model (DPM) module of ANSYS
program for aerosol filtration modeling, and realized the visualization of
particle deposition on the surface of single fiber. Some researchers [12,
13] carried out Lattice-Boltzmann method (LB) to numerically simulate
the deposition morphology on a single fiber, and then studied the effect
of deposited particles on filtration efficiency and pressure drop. Li et al.
[14] carried out Discrete Element Method (DEM) to study the formation
of dendritic structures on single fiber. In terms of fibrous media, Saleh
et al. [15] used the ANSYS-Fluent CFD code (CFD-DPM + UDF) to
numerically simulate the deposition of particles on non-woven fibers,
and then analyzed the effect of dust loading on pressure drop and
filtration efficiency under different SVFs of fibrous media. Shu et al. [16]
conducted a numerical simulation by using OpenFOAM on the filtration
and deposition properties of fibrous media based on the 3D micro-scale
model of layered fibrous media. Some researchers [17–20] used the
principle of random geometry to simplify the actual structure of fiber
filter, and then adopted the CFD-DEM to study the filtration

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: fpingqian@ahut.edu.cn (F. Qian).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2021.108015
Received 10 March 2021; Received in revised form 18 May 2021; Accepted 26 May 2021
Available online 7 June 2021
0360-1323/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
B. Cao et al.
performance under different structure and operating parameters during
dust loading. In summary, a large number of researchers have been used
the microstructure model to directly carry out the numerical simulation
of filtration performance during dust loading. However, the amount of
calculation is very large based on the current numerical calculation
capacity.
At present, numerical simulation is widely used to analyze the
filtration performance of fiber filtration equipment (e.g. bag-type and
cartridge-type dust collector, air filter). However, the structure of fiber
filtration equipment involves a huge scale span, it will cause a huge
amount of numerical calculation to establish the fibrous material
directly and simulate its gas-solid two phase flow based on the micro­
structure. With the development and application of multi-scale analysis
method, the study of complex flow is also promoted to the level of multi-
scale analysis. The numerical simulation are used to analyze the flow at
each scale, and an effective data transfer mechanism between scales is
established. This method can not only meet the requirements of system
analysis of complex flow problems under multi-scale coupling condi­
tions, but also greatly reduce the amount of numerical calculation. In
order to simulate the flow field in the fiber filtration equipment, the
fibrous material is usually simplified as a CFD porous media [21]. The
biggest advantage of this method is that the cost of simulation calcula­
tion is low, but the disadvantages are shown in the two aspects: (1) This
method does not pay attention to the microstructure characteristics of
the fibrous media; (2) It is impossible to capture particles and calculate
the pressure drop in the porous media, which will seriously affect the
flow field distribution in the fiber filtration equipment.
Therefore, three key issues need to be solved to simulate the gas-solid
two phase flow: (1) the trapping of particles in the porous media; (2) the
dynamic change of the pressure drop in the porous media during dust
loading; (3) the different distribution forms of dust in the porous media
are realized based on the characteristics of surface filtration and depth
filtration. The filtration mechanism of high-efficiency filters is mainly
so-called surface filtration regime, where most of the dust accumulates
on the surface of the filter, and then forms a dust-cake (initial adhesion
layer) [22]. According to the characteristics of surface filtration, some
researchers have developed the calculation method for fibrous media
during dust loading based on CFD porous media. Saleh et al. [23]
Fig. 1. The technical route in this study.
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Building and Environment 202 (2021) 108015
conducted a numerical simulation on particle deposition characteristics
of fiber filter based on porous media, and then estimated the relationship
between pressure drop and dust deposition. Yousefi et al. [24] devel­
oped a new method for the microstructure model of dust deposition with
arbitrary shape and multi dispersed particles.
In this work, due to the limitation of CFD porous media, we adopted
the user defined function in ANSYS-Fluent to develop it again, and then
established a macro-scale model to simulate the pressure drop of fibrous
media in the depth filtration. As shown in Fig. 1, The technical route of
this research is as follows: (1) the flow field in the micro-scale model of
fibrous media was numerically simulated to obtain its viscous resistance
in clean state, which was provided to the CFD porous media as the initial
parameter; (2) A macro-scale model was established based on the Euler-
Lagrangian method by means of using the user defined function in
ANSYS-Fluent; (3) Different forms of trapping and loading of particles in
the CFD porous media were realized, so as to calculate the pressure drop
in the depth filtration; (4) The macro-empirical model in the literature
was used to calibrate the macro-scale model under different SVFs.
2. Micro-flow simulation of fibrous media
2.1. 3D modeling of fibrous media
The modeling method is based on the characteristics of layered
fibrous media [18], and such model accounts for the bending, defor­
mation, penetration characteristics and arrangement of fibers. The
geometric topology of layered fibrous media is modeled programmati­
cally by in MATLAB environment, and the point, line, surface and vol­
ume elements needed to establish the 3D model are saved as txt script
files. Then, the pre-processor of ANSYS-Fluent calls the log file com­
mand to read the script file to build the fibrous media. As shown in
Fig. 2, it is an improved micro-model of fibrous media. The fiber
diameter and layer spacing of the reconstructed model are both 15 μm.
By changing the number of fibers, a total of 6 models with SVFs of
8.77%, 11.71%, 15.87%, 17.51%, 19.22%, and 21.98% were obtained.
B. Cao et al. Building and Environment 202 (2021) 108015

Fig. 2. Layered structure of the fibrous media.

2.2. Calculation of flow field
Since the fiber size and operating parameters considered in this
study, and the Reynolds number is less than unity. Therefore, it is
considered that the air flow through the fibrous media is laminar and
incompressible [7]. The Stokes flow is assumed in the computational
domain and solved by the finite volume method in ANSYS-Fluent.
Continuity equation and the Navier-Stokes (N–S) equations are
expressed as follows [25]:
∇⋅→
u (1)
d→u
ρ = − ∇p + η∇2 →
u + ρ→
g (2)
dt
where → u is the fluid velocity vector, ρ, p, η are the velocity vector,
density, pressure, and dynamic viscosity of the air respectively. → g is the
gravitational acceleration. The computational domain and boundary
conditions for simulation were shown in Fig. 3. For the continuous
phase, the air flow inlet boundary was imposed “velocity inlet”, and the
boundary condition of “pressure outlet” was adopted at the outlet. At the
same time, the uniform inlet and outlet boundary conditions should be
placed far away from the region with larger velocity and pressure
gradient [26]. The pressure drop of fibrous media was extracted through
the “interior”. Since the fiber in the computational domain is taken from
the overall fiber filter, and there is no significant lateral airflow in the
fibrous media, the symmetry boundary was used for the surrounding
surface of the computational domain [27]. In this study, the Knudsen
number of the fiber is far less than unity, so the fiber surface was set to be
the no-slip boundary condition [28].
As mentioned above, the arrangement of fibers in the computational
domain is irregular. Hence, ICEM CFD was used to generate an un­
structured tetrahedral grid to realize the discretization of the compu­
tational domain [29]. In order to accurately simulate the flow field of the
fibrous media, the grid independence must be verified. There are two
settings for the global element seed size of the computational domain.
The mesh at the fiber needs to be locally densified, and the maximum
size of the fiber at the three settings is defined. The Detailed parameter
settings of the grid are listed in Table 1. As the number of grids increases,
the pressure drop tends to stabilize, as shown in Fig. 4. Therefore, the
third grid setting is adopted in this study to balance the computational
efficiency and reliability.
2.3. Dimensionless pressure drop
The gas through the fibrous media is laminar flow, so the pressure
drop of fibrous media follows Darcy’s law [2,29], which can be sum­
marized as the follows.
Δp ηV
= f (α) 2 (3)
L df
where f (α) is dimensionless pressure drop, η is dynamic viscosity of air,
df is fiber diameter and L is fibrous media thickness. According to Dar­
cy’s law, there is a quantitative relationship between the slope of the
fitting line (S) and the structural parameters of the fibrous media (see
Fig. 5), and the dimensionless pressure drop can be obtained by the
following equation.
Sdf2
f (α) = (4)
ηL
As shown in Fig. 6, the f (α) ~ SVF fitting curve of fibrous media was
obtained by six groups of flow field simulation data. It can be seen that
with the increase of SVF, the internal structure of the fibrous media
becomes more complicated, and the deviation between the numerical
results and the Davies experimental values [30] increases. However, the
fitting result of this study and Davies experimental value are in good
agreement with SVF ranging from 5% to 25%. Therefore, it is reliable to
provide the fitting results in this range as initial parameters to the CFD
porous media.

Table 1
Parameter setting of grid.
Mesh Global element seed size (mm) Maximum mesh size of the fibers (mm)

1 0.032 0.008
2 0.032 0.006
3 0.032 0.004
4 0.016 0.004

Fig. 3. Simulation domain and boundary conditions（SVF = 21.98%）.

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B. Cao et al. Building and Environment 202 (2021) 108015

two terms: one due to viscous loss effect and the other due to inertial
effect [21].
( )
∑3 ∑3
1
Si = − Dij ηVi + Tij ρ|V|Vj (8)
j=1 j=1
2

where Si is the momentum source term in i direction, |v| is the magni­

tude of the velocity. For homogeneous porous media, the source term
can be simplified as:
( )
1
Si = C1 ηVi + C2 ρ|V|Vj (9)
2

1
C1 = (10)
K

where C1 is the viscous resistance (1/m2), K is the permeability (m2),

and C2 is the inertial resistance (1/m). Since the air filter operates under
laminar flow, the inertial resistance can be regarded as zero for the
porous media. At this time, the porous media conforms to Darcy’s law
Fig. 4. The effect of grid number on the pressure drop（SVF = 21.98%、V = [25]:
0.1 m/s）.
η→
∇p = − V (11)
K
3. The construction of macro-scale model based on CFD porous
media ∑3
η
Δpx = vj Δnx (12)
K xj
3.1. Governing equation of gas-solid two phase flow j=1

∑3
η
With current numerical simulation capabilities, the computational Δpy = vj Δny (13)
costs are very huge to simulate the particle deposition characteristics on j=1
K yj

the microstructure of fibrous media on CFD-DEM or CFD-DPM + UDF

platform. Therefore, a macro-scale model was established based on the
CFD porous media by means of the UDF in ANSYS-Fluent to simulate the
pressure drop of medium/low-efficiency filter whose filtration mecha­
nism is mainly depth filtration during dust loading. The macro-scale
model refers to the simulation on the scale equivalent to the filter size,
which is 3–4 orders of magnitude of the micro-scale model [23]. In this
section, firstly, the governing equations of gas-solid two phase flow and
CFD porous media were introduced; then, the secondary development of
pressure drop of porous media during dust loading was elaborated;
finally, different particle trapping mechanisms in the macro model were
developed.
In the macro-scale simulation, the equation [(1) ~ (2)] was used to
solve the continuous phase. For discrete phase, Lagrangian model pre­
dicts the trajectory of particles by integrating the force balance on
particles [31]. In this study, micron particles were mainly considered,
and the diffusion effect can be ignored [32]. Therefore, the forces acting
on the particles mainly include drag force and gravity. The force balance
is expressed as follows:
( ) →( ) porous media. The symmetry boundary were used for the surrounding
d→up g ρp − ρ
= FD → u− → up + (5)
dt ρp
18ηCD Re
FD = (6)
24ρp dp2
⃒ ⃒
⃒ ⃒
ρdp ⃒⃒→up− →
u ⃒⃒
Re = (7)
η Fluent. The standard DPM module in ANSYS code needed to be
where →u p , ρp, dp are velocity vector, density and diameter of the particle,
respectively. F (→ Du− →u ) is the drag force per unit particle mass, Re is
p and mark the position, quantity and quality of particles. User defined
the relative Reynolds number, CD is the drag coefficient.
The fibrous media in the macro-scale simulation was modeled as
porous media. The governing equation of fluid transport in porous
media is obtained by adding the source term to the momentum equation
of compressible fluid flow [33]. The additional source term consists of
∑3
η
Δpz = vj Δnz (14)
K zj
j=1
where Δpx Δpy , Δpz are the pressure drop in the three directions of x, y,
and z respectively, Δnx , Δny , Δnz are the thickness of the porous medium
in the three directions of x, y, and z respectively. The viscous resistance
C1 can be calculated from the dimensionless pressure drop f (α) obtained
by micro-flow simulation.
C1 =
f (α)
(15)
df2
3.2. Secondary development of CFD porous media during dust loading
Fig. 7 shows the computational domain and boundary conditions of
the macro-scale model used to simulate the pressure drop of fibrous
media during dust loading. The thickness of porous media is 5 mm, and
the velocity entrance surface is established 15 mm upstream of the
surface of the computational domain and the boundary condition of
“pressure outlet” was adopted at the outlet. The initial (i.e. the clean
state) porosity of porous media (ε) was set according to the micro-scale
model.
Due to the limitation of CFD porous media, it is impossible to capture
particles and realize the change of pressure drop during particle loading.
As shown in Fig. 8, the modeling process of macro-scale model during
dust loading was established by using user defined function in ANSYS-
enhanced by using internal subroutine, which was enhanced by using
define DPM_SCALAR_Update Macro to load particles on porous media
memory (UDM) was adopted to mark the cells containing particles. In
this process, the switch UDM0 used for particle capture was assigned as
1, and then the increase of particle quantity and mass in each time step
was recorded by UDM1 and UDM2 respectively. We used DEFINE_EX­
ECUTE_AT_END Macro to calculate the total mass of particles in the cell

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B. Cao et al.
Fig. 5. Fitting line of filtration velocity and pressure drop under different SVFs.
after the current time step is completed, and record the data into UDM3.
The porosity and viscous resistance were recorded by UDM4 and UDM5
respectively. The viscous resistance of porous media in each direction is
defined by using Define_Profile Macro. After a time step is completed,
the porosity of each the cell in the porous media was recalculated to
update the viscous resistance coefficient. In order to further explain the
UDMs used in the modeling process and make it convenient to call UDMs
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Building and Environment 202 (2021) 108015
in the program, the enumeration form and its physical meaning of UDMs
were given in Table 2.
It is worth noting that the position of trapped particles in porous
media will have a great impact on the pressure drop. Fig. 9 shows the
trapping mechanism of particles in the porous media in this study. A
threshold (X) was set for the porosity of the cell in porous media to
realize different deposition forms along the thickness direction. For
B. Cao et al. Building and Environment 202 (2021) 108015

completely trapped in the surface cell, and the threshold (X) is greater
than 0 and less than the porosity in the clean state. When UDM4 reaches
this threshold, the particles are no longer trapped by the current cell and
move towards the downstream cell. In this section, we have compared
four kinds of trapping mechanism programs (X = 0.75ε, 0.80ε, 0.85ε and
0.90ε). As shown in Fig. 10, the mass flow rate of particles was 1*10− 6
kg/s, and the different particle distribution forms along the thickness
direction of the porous media under four trapping mechanism programs
were given. It can be seen that with the increase of threshold, more

Table 2
The enumeration types and physical meanings of UDM in this study.
UDM Enumerated types Physical meanings

UDM0 C_UDMI(c,t,trap_on) Switch for trapping particles in porous zone

UDM1 C_UDMI(c,t,num_dpm) Record increased number of particles in the
cell
UDM2 C_UDMI(c,t,mass_dpm) Record increased mass of particles in the cell
UDM3 C_UDMI(c,t, Record total mass of particles in the cell
tot_dpm_mass)
Fig. 6. Curve fitting for non-dimensional pressure drop of the fibrous media. UDM4 C_UDMI(c,t,poros) Porosity in particle loaded porous zone
UDM5 C_UDMI(c,t,visco) Viscous resistance in particle loaded porous
zone

Fig. 7. Simulation domain of macro-scale model.

surface filtration, it is assumed that the particles cannot penetrate into

the porous media, and the filtration efficiency in the surface cell is
100%. At the same time, in order to avoid the negative value of the
porosity, the threshold (X) of the porosity is set to be equal to 0. For
depth filtration in this study, it is considered that the particles will not be Fig. 9. Trapping mechanism program of particles in porous media.

Fig. 8. The flowchart for macro-scale model during dust loading.

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B. Cao et al. Building and Environment 202 (2021) 108015

Fig. 10. Dust distribution in porous media under different thresholds.

particles will be trapped by the downstream cell, and the thickness of
dust layer will increase. It is worth mentioning that because of the use of
CFD porous media, it is only a technical method to simulate the particle
capture in the filter, which is different from the real filtration process.
3.3. Solver parameter setting
The simulation of the micro-scale model and the gas-solid two phase
flow of the macro-scale model were performed on a computer with Intel
Xeon CPU E5-26700@2.60GHz and memory of 32 GB. For transient
calculation, the monitoring object are velocity and continuity in x, y and
z directions. The convergence residuals of each time step in all directions
are lower than 10− 6. The parameter settings of the solver are listed in
Table 3.
model for dynamic prediction of pressure drop for multi-layer fibrous
media. Based on Model A, Thomas et al. [35] presented a quantitative
computational model for predicting the dynamic pressure drop of
multi-layer fibrous media. Leung and Hung [34] proposed a quantitative
mathematical for predicting the dynamic change of pressure drop for
fibrous media. On the other hand, based on the Davies model, it is
assumed that the fiber diameter and solid volume fraction are increased
due to dust loading (Model B), Zhao et al. [36] proposed a quantitative
mathematical model for the dynamic change of the pressure drop of the
fibrous media which is suitable for the depth filtration. The expression of
the dynamic pressure drop is as follows.
Δp = f (α)t ηVL (16)
( )
f (α)t = F αt , dft (17)

αt = Kd2 α (18)
4. Results and discussion
dft = Kd df (19)
4.1. The macro-empirical model
( /( ))1/2
The effect of particle the deposition pattern should be considered Kd = 1 + M αρp L (20)
when predicting the dynamic change of pressure drop. In order to
where f(α)t is the equivalent dimensionless pressure drop, αt is the
establish a mathematical model to dynamically predict the pressure
equivalent solid volume fraction, dft is the equivalent fiber diameter, Kd
drop of fibrous media during dust loading, two ideal deposition models
(Model A and Model B) [34] were proposed by simplifying the deposi­ is the deposition coefficient, and M is the particle deposition per unit
tion model of particles. In Model A, it is assumed that dust loading is area (kg/m2). The macro-empirical model was used to calibrate the
considered as “new fibers”. In Model B, it is assumed that dust loading threshold (X) in the particle trapping mechanism under different SVFs.
changes the structural parameters of the original fiber. Model A was In this process, three kinds of fibrous media with different SVFs (10%,
suitable for a larger number of deposited particles during dust loading 15%, 20%) were selected. Firstly, the viscous resistance in clean state
(the surface filtration) and Model B was more appropriate for the initial was provided to the porous media. Then, three kinds of macro-scale
stage of the dust loading [18]. models were simulated under four different particle trapping mecha­
However, few researchers proposed the quantitative mathematical nisms. Finally, the best particle trapping mechanism was selected for
different macro-scale models through error analysis.
Table 3
Key parameter settings in the simulation. 4.2. Calibration of the macro-scale model with different SVFs
Parameters Values
It is shown that the method is reliable to extract the viscous resis­
Particle density (kg⋅m− 3) 1550
tance from the simulation results of the micro-scale model of fibrous
Particle diameter (μm) 5
Total flow rate (kg⋅s− 1) 1*10− 6 media and provide it to the porous media as the initial parameter. As
Time step for CFD (s) 0.02 shown in Fig. 11, during dust loading, with the increase of the particle
Time step for DPM (s) 0.02 loading, the pressure drop under different trapping mechanism pro­
Simulation time (s) 7 grams presents different growth trends. For the macro-scale model with
Number of user-defined memory locations 6
the same SVF, with the increase of the threshold (X), more dust will be

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B. Cao et al. Building and Environment 202 (2021) 108015

Fig. 11. Comparison of pressure drop during dust loading.

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B. Cao et al. Building and Environment 202 (2021) 108015

captured by the downstream cell in porous media, which makes the dust
distribution more uniform, so the growth rate of pressure drop de­
creases. The macro-scale model established in this study was calibrated
by using the calculation value of the macro-empirical model of pressure
drop during dust loading. The macro-scale model with 10%, 15% and
20% SVF was calibrated. It is more reasonable to select the threshold (X)
of porous media cell to be 0.85ε, 0.85ε and 0.80ε respectively for
selecting the trapping mechanism. For the macro-scale model with
different SVFs after calibration, the deviation between the numerical
simulation results and the calculation values of macro-empirical model
is less than 20%. It is worth mentioning that with the increase of SVF, the
threshold (X) decreases, and more dust will be captured by the surface
cell in porous media. The results of CFD-DEM simulation in Ref. [18] can
also support this explanation.
Fig. 13. The filter performance test bench.

4.3. Accuracy verification of the macro-scale model

As shown in Fig. 12, according to the air filter performance test

standard (EN779:2012) [37], the test bench for filter of filtration per­
formance was built, which can test the pressure drop, filtration effi­
ciency, air volume and dust capacity. The standard test conditions are:
temperature 293 K, atmospheric pressure 0.1 MPa, relative humidity
50%. The air was inhaled by the fan, passed through the dust generator,
mixing pipe, the front section of the test, the filter to be tested, and
finally discharged through the end filter. The range of differential
pressure test is 0–1000 Pa, the gas source pressure is 0.6 MPa, and the
working voltage is 380 V. ASHRAE A1 dust was used as loading dust,
which is composed of 72% Arizona dust, 23% carbon black and 5%
cotton lint. The particle size distribution of ASHRAE A1 dust is as fol­
lows: about 20% of the dust with particle size below 1 μm, about 40% of
the dust with particle size between 1 μm and 10 μm, about 35% of the
dust with particle size between 10 μm and 90 μm, and about 5% of the
dust with particle size above 90 μm. Therefore, the mass mean diameter
(MMD) of ASHRAE A1 dust is about 5–10 μm. The bench for the per­
formance test of the filter in this study is shown in Fig. 13.
In the clean state, the pressure drop of F9 filter material (see Fig. 14)
was tested by changing the filtration velocity. As shown in Table 4, the
test values of F9 filter material pressure drop were given in the range of Fig. 14. F9 filter material.
0–0.128 m/s. As shown in Fig. 15, the correlation between the pressure
drop of F9 filter material and the filtration velocity was obtained by
worth noting that the unit conversion should be paid attention to in the
linear fitting the data in Table 4. Thus, the viscous resistance under clean
calculation.
condition was provided for the CFD porous media. According to equa­
As shown in Fig. 16(a), the length and width of the 592*592*292-4
tion (21), the viscous resistance of F9 filter material is 4.14*1010 (1/m2).
V–F9 filter are 592 mm. The height is 292 mm. The filtration area is
k1 about 17.4 m2. The filter is composed of four V-shaped filter units and
C1 = (21)
t⋅η the structure of each filter unit is shown in Fig. 16(b). The inside of each
V-shaped filter unit is a pleated structure, and its pleated height and
where k1 is the slope of the fitting line in Fig. 15; t is the thickness of F9 pleated spacing are shown in Fig. 16 (c). As shown in Fig. 16 (d), under
filter material, which is about 0.3 mm under atmospheric pressure. It is

Fig. 12. Structure diagram of filter performance test bench.

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B. Cao et al. Building and Environment 202 (2021) 108015

Table 4 and (2) the dust generation test is conducted at the air volume of 3400
The test data of pressure drop for F9 filter material in clean state. m3/h (face velocity of 2.81 m/s), and the filtration velocity is about 5.4
Sample Filtration velocity’ Pressure drop cm/s. The first dust generation was 30 g, and the pressure drop of the
filter was calculated after the dust generation; (3) the air blowing was
(L/min) (cm/s) (mmH2O) (Pa)
stopped for 5 min, and the weight gain of the filter was recorded; (4) the
F9 filter material 0 0.0 0.0 0.0 pressure drop of the filter was 150, 250, 350 and 450 pa by four times of
21.0 3.5 0.9 8.8
32.4 5.4 1.3 12.7
dust generation, and the weight gain of the filter after each dust gen­
43.4 7.2 1.7 16.7 eration was recorded.
54.4 9.1 2.1 20.6 Table 6 shows the pressure drop test data of 592*592*292-4 V–F9
64.5 10.8 2.4 23.5 filter during dust loading, and the corresponding relationship between
76.5 12.8 2.8 27.5
pressure drop and dust holding capacity was obtained. As shown in
Fig. 17, the fitting curve between the pressure drop of dust layer and the
particle deposition per unit area was obtained by fitting the five groups
of data in Table 6. The expression is shown in equation (22).

Δp = 0.01271M 4 − 0.35081M 3 + 4.52073M 2 + 3.27325M + 0.45443 (22)

The 592*592*292-4 V–F9 filter used in the test was simplified to CFD
porous media and the numerical simulation was carried out during dust
loading. Since the porosity of F9 filter material is about 0.7 (SVF = 30%),
the threshold value (X) should be selected between 0.60ε and 0.65ε
according to the developed pressure drop model of fibrous media during
dust loading. As shown in Fig. 18, the relationship between the pressure
drop of the dust layer and the dust holding capacity is given when the
thresholds are 0.60, 0.62 and 0.65ε, respectively. As shown in Fig. 19,
the dust layer pressure drop calculated under the three thresholds is
compared with the test values. It can be seen that the numerical simu­
lation results are higher than the test values. This is because during the
numerical simulation, the filter is simplified as a porous media, and the
load of particles on the porous media is uniform. But in the actual
filtration process, the load of particles in different positions of the filter
material is uneven. Because of the non-uniformity of dust loading, the
numerical simulation results are higher than the test values. When X =
Fig. 15. Linear fitting of pressure drop of F9 filter material.

the rated air volume of 3400 m3/h, the filtration velocity is about 5.4 Table 5
cm/s. Pressure drop test data of 592*592*292-4 V–F9 filter under different air volume.
The test of the dust loading of the filter is divided into the following Air volume (m3/h) 1700 2550 3400 4250
steps: (1) as shown in Table 5, the pressure drop of the filter is tested
Pressure drop (Pa) 26.5 46.2 72.2 103.7
under four operating air volumes (1700, 2550, 3400 and 4250 m3/h);

Fig. 16. Structural diagram of 592*592*292-4 V–F9 filter.

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B. Cao et al. Building and Environment 202 (2021) 108015

Table 6
Pressure drop test data of 592*592*292-4 V–F9 filter under different dust
holding capacity.
Test Single dust Cumulative Average Cumulative Pressure
emission dust emission weight weight gain drop
(g) (g) gain (g) (g) (Pa)

1 0 0 0 0 72.2
2 30 30 27.50 27.50 89.0
3 55 85 50.42 77.92 150.0
4 60 145 55.01 132.93 250.0
5 53 198 48.58 181.51 350.0
6 41 239 37.59 219.10 450.0

Fig. 19. Comparison of numerical simulation results and the test values.

defined function in ANSYS-Fluent, a macro-scale model for predicting

the pressure drop of fibrous media in the depth filtration was established
by combining the micro-scale model with the CFD porous media. The
following conclusions can be drawn:

(1) The flow field of the micro-scale model of the layered structure
fibrous media was numerically simulated, and the viscous resis­
tance under the clean state is obtained, which is provided to the
porous media as the initial parameter. This method is accurate
and reliable.
(2) A macro-scale model was established based on the CFD porous
Fig. 17. Fitting curve of pressure drop and dust holding capacity of dust layer. media by means of the user defined function to simulate the
pressure drop in the depth filtration. In other words, the function
of particle trapping in porous media and the dynamic change of
pressure drop during dust loading are realized.
(3) By controlling the threshold of the cell in porous media, the
different trapping mechanism programs are developed to realize
the different distribution forms of particles along the thickness
direction. Under the same dust loading, with the increase of
threshold, more particles will be trapped by the downstream cell.
With the increase of the dust loading, the pressure drop under
different trapping mechanism programs presents different
growth trends.
(4) The 592*592*292-4 V–F9 filter used in the test was simplified to
CFD porous media and the numerical simulation was carried out
during dust loading. The deviation between the numerical
simulation results and the test values is basically within 30%.
Thus, it provides guidance for the simulation of gas-solid two
phase flow in dust collector and filter.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Bowen Cao: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Writing –

Fig. 18. Relationship between pressure drop and dust holding capacity under
different thresholds.
0.65ε, the deviation between the numerical simulation results and the
test values is basically within 30%. Therefore, the application of pres­
sure drop model broadens the way of studying the pressure drop of
fibrous media during dust loading, and provides a versatile guideline in
engineering applications.
5. Conclusions
Based on the Euler-Lagrangian method by implementing the user
original draft, Writing – review & editing. Fuping Qian: Investigation,
Resources, Funding acquisition, Project administration. Mengmeng Ye:
Formal analysis, Software, Visualization. Yuan Guo: Investigation, Re­
sources. Shilong Wang: Investigation, Resources, Formal analysis,
Software. Jinli Lu: Investigation, Resources. Yunlong Han: Investiga­
tion, Resources.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.

11
B. Cao et al. Building and Environment 202 (2021) 108015

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