Surface cleaning with impinging jets

Cleaning of surfaces is an important process in various sheet processing, semiconductor, pharmaceutical and food industries. Unwanted particles and foreign media must be thoroughly removed prior to further processing of surfaces. Impinging jets for surface cleaning is an efficient and widely used method. The impingement region creates a normal impact originating cracks and weakening attraction forces between the impurities and the surface overcoming the initial adhesion force. Impurities may comprise particles, viscous media or a combination of both. Subsequently, the radial forces exerted by the wall jet displaces the impurities outward rendering a clean surface.

The goal of the project is to model the cleaning process. Effectiveness of various forms of impinging jets considering flat spray, pulsating and rotating jets for surface cleaning shall be determined experimentally. The various nozzle exit conditions are modeled to simulate the surface cleaning process. Simulations are performed using the Volume of Fluid (VOF) approach with an open source CFD tool OpenFOAM® and validated with experiments. Parametric analysis of the process is performed to optimize the expended energy for surface cleaning.