Flow rate dependency of critical wall shear stress in a radial-flow cell

In the present work, a radial-flow cell was used to study the removal of starch particle aggregates from several solid substrates (glass, stainless steel, polystyrene and PTFE) in order to determine the critical wall shear stress value for each case. The particle aggregates were formed by aspersion of a water or ethanol suspension of starch granules on the surfaces.

Depending on the substrate and on the suspending liquid, the aggregates differed in size and shape. Aggregate removal was studied at two flow rates. At the lower flow rate (Re-inlet = 955), the values of critical wall shear stress for the different surfaces suggested that capillary forces were, for all of them, playing an important role in aggregate adhesion since aqueous based aggregates were always more difficult to remove.

At the higher flow rate (Re-inlet = 2016) the critical wall shear stress increased as a result of the change in the flow pattern in the vicinity of the aggregates and not because of changes in the type of particle adhesion. This raises the importance of the experimental conditions on assessing the critical wall shear stress since this parameter may not be always only directly related to the soil adhesion strength.