Particle collision efficiencies for a sphere

Abstract

Trajectories are calculated for small particles introduced upstream into a fluid flowing past a fixed sphere. Unseparated potential flow is taken as the velocity profile for the fluid, and the effect of gravity is included in the formulation when it acts along the axis of symmetry. Using a numerical procedure, particle trajectories which graze the sphere, and the corresponding collision efficiencies, are calculated for values of the Stokes number σ. When gravity is neglected, an analytic solution is obtained for large values of σ which is in good agreement with the numerical results for σ as low as 5. These results are compared with those of Sell (1931) and Langmuir & Blodgett (1946). When gravity is included, a critical value of the Stokes number σ_c is calculated for which no collisions occur until σ > σ_c.