The morphology of the deposited particles after a wet agglomerate normal surface impact

Journal article, 2019

Through discrete element modeling, we investigate the breakage, deposition and attachment of wet dust agglomerates during normal surface impacts. The morphology and structure of the deposited dirt layer is studied through statistical analysis of the height profiles. It is found that the deposited layer is influenced by both the structural properties of the primary agglomerates and the impact conditions. The roughness of the deposited dirt layer shows a positive correlation to impact velocity and a negative correlation to the agglomerate moisture content. Within the pendular liquid regime the structural strength of the agglomerates shows a strong correlation to the moisture content while at higher moisture content the correlation becomes weaker. It is also observed that for a given impact velocity agglomerates of various sizes show similar deposition patterns. To unify the results for different agglomerate sizes, a dimensionless surface density is introduced.