Aerosol Transport – Inertia

:: Section 8

Curvilinear Motion and Stokes Number

I. Curvilinear Motion

When a particle follows a curved path, it is said to have curvilinear motion. An example of curvilinear motion is the trajectory of a particle injected horizontally with a velocity V₀ into still air while influeneced by the gravity, as shown below:

The situation is more complicated for a flow around an obstacle. Very small particles with negligible inertia will follow the gas streamlines perfectly. Large particles will tend to continue in a straight line, regardless of what the gas flow does due to the inertia.