Quantifying Thermophoretic Deposition of Soot on Surfaces

Published

October 2, 2017

Author(s)

Amy E. Mensch, Thomas G. Cleary

Abstract

Quantitative data on deposition of soot agglomerate particles in the literature is needed to advance fire forensic analysis as well as fire model predictions of visibility and detector activation. This paper provides direct measurements of thermophoretic soot deposition in a laminar flow channel and the driving conditions to improve understanding of soot deposition in fires and for deposition model assessment. The overall deposition velocities were determined through measurements of the incoming soot concentration and gravimetric measurements of the soot deposited. The effects of channel flowrate and temperature gradient as well as inlet concentration were examined. The deposition velocities showed good agreement with the theoretical thermophoretic velocities expected based on the channel temperature gradients. The flow, heat transfer and deposition in the experiments were also modeled using the Fire Dynamics Simulator, and the simulation deposition velocities were generally less than found in the experiments.

Conference Dates

September 12-14, 2017

Conference Location

College Park, MD

Conference Title

Suppression, Detection and Signaling Research and Applications Conference

Pub Type

Conferences

Download Paper

Local Download

Keywords

soot, thermophoresis, deposition velocity

Citation

Mensch, A. and Cleary, T. (2017), Quantifying Thermophoretic Deposition of Soot on Surfaces, Suppression, Detection and Signaling Research and Applications Conference, College Park, MD, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=923392 (Accessed October 14, 2025)