INTERSTITIAL STRUCTURES

Abstract

Powder metallurgical processing of bronze powder and stainless steel fibre is widely employed to produce porous media that are used for separating particles from liquids or gases. The powders and fibres are of uniform diameter and, consequently, it is found that the flow behaviour of typical media can be described by a simple Kozeny Carman model of capillary flow. Hydraulic oil containing a suspension of standard test dust has been passed through flat sheets of media and correlations have been established between the particle size of dust retained during the test and a structural pore size parameter describing the sample. Using the capillary model, it is also shown how media having a specific separation performance can be designed for more demanding applications such as the processing of high performance thermoplastics and the treatment of aqueous nuclear waste. PM/0505