CFD-DEM Simulation for Filtration Performance of Biomimetic Irregular Fiber Media Inspired by Tennis Shrimp Filter-Feeding

The setae on the chelicerae of tennis shrimp, a kind of filter-feeding organism, exemplify the superiority of the biological filtration mechanism, which inspires the design and optimization of biomimetic fiber filter structure. Inspired by the noncircular cross-sectional characteristics and the arrangement of the filtering setae, we numerically study the effects of the rotation angle, cross-section, and arrangement of the fibers media on the filtration performance using coupled computational fluid dynamic (CFD) and discrete element method (DEM), where CFD is used to deal with the flow field and DEM to calculate the particle phase. The evolution of the capture efficiency and pressure drop of fiber with triangular, oval, and diamond cross sections is also explored. The results show that the fiber with a triangular cross-section and a rotation angle of 60° exhibits a better filtration performance for capturing particles with a size of 2 μm in terms of quality factor. In addition, further analysis of triangular cross-section fiber arrangement with isotropic and anisotropic staggered multifiber model reveals that most of the particles are more easily captured by the first two rows of fibers. In addition, the 3D dendrite structure is gradually formed due to the adhesion between the particles, causing a clogging phenomenon in the filtration process. In general, the filter-feeding mechanism of tennis shrimp seta provides theoretical support and insights for the optimization of the fiber filter, offering potential applications in environment protection and industrial filtration.