Electrical effect of soot depositions in a co-axial wire pipe flow

An investigation was performed to study the electrical effects on the soot deposition in a co-axial wire cylinder with cooled walls. Experiments were performed for applied voltages from 0 to −5 kV or +5 kV and a diesel exhaust mass flow rate of 20 kg/h or Reynolds number of approximately 9000. The outer wall was cooled using water with a temperature of approximately 40 °C, and the experiments were performed for exposure times of 2 h. The soot deposition layer thickness was measured using a non-destructive neutron radiography technique at the end of each experiment. The results show that the electric field had a significant effect on the soot deposition and increases it by a factor of approximately 4 at the applied voltage of 5 kV before spark on-set. The soot thickness was similar for the positive and negative polarities and the results show that there was significant deposition on the wire as well as the outer wall for both polarities. Since soot deposition even occurs on both corona wire and grounded pipe below corona on-set voltages of the clean system, there may be a significant pre-charging of the diesel soot with both polarities in the diesel exhaust gas as has been observed by the recent measurements of Marieq [On the electrical charge of motor vehicle exhaust particles, Journal of Aerosol Science 37 (7) (2006) 858–874].