ON THE CRITICAL STOKES NUMBER FOR PARTICLE-TRANSPORT IN POTENTIAL AND VISCOUS FLOWS NEAR BLUFF-BODIES

The inertial deposition of flowing aerosols past a variety of symmetrically shaped objects is investigated. The existence of a critical value of the Stokes' number, below which no particles may be deposited on the object in finite time, has been suggested and a plausible reason for this, using linearized theory, has been given. In this paper a more rigorous non-linear mathematical argument is developed and shows that for potential flow a non-zero value of the critical Stokes' number is obtained, whilst for viscous flow the critical Stokes' number is zero. © 1990.