Critical scaling law for the deposition efficiency of inertia-driven particle collisions with a cylinder in high Reynolds number air flow

TL;DR

This paper derives a critical scaling law for particle deposition efficiency on a cylinder in high Reynolds number flow, revealing an exponential relationship near a critical inertia threshold, with implications for atmospheric and environmental processes.

Contribution

It introduces a novel exponential scaling law for particle deposition near the critical Stokes number in high Reynolds number flow, linking flow stagnation points to deposition behavior.

Findings

Deposition efficiency scales as exp(-1/(St - St_c)^{1/2}) near the critical Stokes number.

The scaling law is governed by flow stagnation points and particle travel time.

Deposited particles increase slowly just above the critical inertia threshold.

Abstract

The Earth's atmosphere is an aerosol, it contains suspended particles. When air flows over an obstacle such as an aircraft wing or tree branch, these particles may not follow the same paths as the air flowing around the obstacle. Instead the particles in the air may deviate from the path of the air and so collide with the surface of the obstacle. It is known that particle inertia can drive this deposition, and that there is a critical value of this inertia, below which no point particles deposit. Particle inertia is measured by the Stokes number, St. We show that near the critical value of the Stokes number, St$_c$, the amount of deposition has the unusual scaling law of exp(-1/(St-St$_c$)$^{1/2}$). The scaling is controlled by the stagnation point of the flow. This scaling is determined by the time for the particle to reach the surface of the cylinder varying as 1/(St-St$_c$)$^{1/2}$, together with the distance away from the stagnation point (perpendicular to the flow direction) increasing exponentially with time. The scaling law applies to inviscid flow, a model for flow at high Reynolds numbers. The unusual scaling means that the amount of particles deposited increases only very slowly above the critical Stokes number. This has consequences for applications ranging from rime formation and fog harvesting to pollination.