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Digital design and virtual switching of cartridges to increase filter performance – the new GeoDict software feature

Computer-Aided-Design (CAD) is of keen interest to simulate flow and filtration on filters with cartridges. However, performing systematic simulations on different geometrical setups requires the generation of these structures as CAD individually and the import of each sample separately.

A new feature in the GeoDict software allows to generate a variety of cartridges with changing pleat count, pleat thickness, and number of porous layers, and digitally switch them inside the housing. Starting now, it is easy and quick to find the ideal configuration between filter area and pleat count for cartridges and their housing, regarding their local minimum pressure drop and many filtration relevant parameters.

This digital test of the performance of filter prototypes circumvents the need for expensive, trial-and-error manufacturing and testing phases, since only promising prototypes undergo measurements at the testbench. These systematic simulations with varying geometries or flow rates may be run simultaneously in cloud applications to further increase the productivity, fit customers requests, and decrease time-to-market.

GeoDict in ASTM E3278-21 International Standard

The simulation software GeoDict is presented in the ASTM E3278-21 international standard to digitally perform bubble point pressure testing of woven wire filter cloth.

Traditionally, the pore diameter is calculated using the measured pressure based on the Young-Laplace equation for the equilibrium of the gas pressure and surface tension forces. However, this equation is only for the perfect model (cylindrical pore, thin film with contact angle of 0°, isopropanol wetting liquid) and must be corrected by either the actual contact angle or a tortuosity factor for the filter cloth.

Alternatively, according to ASTM E3278-21, the software-based calculations of the PoroDict module of GeoDict are obtained through the non-circular cross-section of the bottle neck through-path of the filter cloth. This improves correlation and is able to generate a specific correction factor for each different filter cloth specification.

The ASTM E3278-21 standardizes software-based calculations of pore size through bubble point computations performed with the PoroDict module.

PoroDict quantitatively characterizes pore size, percolation path, tortuosity, bubble point pressure, and other parameters of the pore space, such as Pore Size Distribution (Granulometry and Porosimetry), Chord Length Distribution, open and closed porosity, and geodesic tortuosity.

Math2Market software products are a worthwhile new technological strategy, used by internationally renowned manufacturers in the filtration industry to optimize processes, to cut prototyping and R&D costs, to accelerate the design of filter and filter media greatly, and to boost their competitive edge.

Modeling, simulation, and optimization of filter media for protective face masks

In answering the global demand for safe personal protective equipment and the need for faster development and optimization of face masks, we demonstrate in a short video how GeoDict software is applied to design, model, simulate, analyze and optimize the filter media to improve the filter characteristics of face masks.

This unique digital workflow with GeoDict represents an efficient, sustainable and state-of-the-art methodology for digital R&D material design for porous media, explicitly shown here for a filter medium as an example.

These reliable quantitative simulations are the way to a time and cost saving approach for the development of new filter materials and filters with superior lifetime and performance. Development phases can be significantly accelerated thanks to shortened development times. The innovations can be developed much more easily by obtaining digitally unique insights and rich information about material prototypes and their properties, even before manufacturing them.

The GeoDict simulation software of Math2Market is part of the ASTM E2814-18 international standard

MATH2MARKET GmbH is a leader in providing software and consulting solutions for the design of innovative filter media, and for the improvement of filtration processes from its location in Kaiserslautern, Germany, near Frankfurt. Math2Market’s team, with an extensive research background, develops and supplies the GeoDict^® software for R&D in numerous industries. For the filtration industry, Math2Market supports pioneering digital filter development and design to improve pressure drop, efficiency, and lifetime of filters, while at the same time greatly reducing, or even eliminating, expensive and time-consuming experimental testing.

Math2Market’s software GeoDict^® only needs user-defined specifications, micro-CT and FIB/SEM images of filter media, or CAD models of filter elements to produce structural models of filter elements, pleats, and media (nonwoven, woven, metal and plastic meshes, synthetic media and papers, ceramics, open-cell foams, membranes, gradient materials…). Then, it analyzes pore size distribution, bubble point, fluid flow, pressure drop, particle capture, MPPS, depth filtration, clogging, dust holding capacity, and cake formation in the digital models. Gas filtration (air: DPF, HVAC) or liquid filtration (oil filter, hydraulic filters, sludge filtration, water, blood…) processes are simulated taking into account fluid density and viscosity, Brownian motion, inertial impaction, electrostatic forces, adhesion forces, and particle size and mass distribution. The possibilities of digital non-destructive testing are virtually boundless.

Math2Market software products are a worthwhile new technological strategy, used by internationally renowned manufacturers in the filtration industry to optimize processes, to cut prototyping and R&D costs, to accelerate the design of filters and filter media greatly, and to boost their competitive edge.