Abstract
When a dilute suspension flows in the laminar regime through a tube, under certain conditions the suspended particles migrate radially to an equilibrium radial position. Branched tubes can use this radial concentration distribution to concentrate dilute suspensions. Suspensions of micro algae , Chlorella vulgaris, were pumped through tubes of various diameters for tube Reynolds number ranging from 47-1839 and photographed. Upstream particle concentration profiles were obtained by image analysis of the photographs. The dividing stream surfaces in branched tubes were obtained from the three- dimensional numerical solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations for steady, laminar, and homogeneous flow through tubes having one and two orthogonal branches. Concentration factors for Chlorella suspensions in branched tubes, predicted by a general method, fall in the range of 1.0–1.3
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