Similarity and Difference of Direct/Tornado Suction Modes of Road Sweeper:A Simulation Study

The flow-fields of street vacuum sweeper,operating in direct and/or tornado suction modes,were mathematically formulated with realizable k-ε turbulence model,theoretically analyzed and numerically simulated with FLUENT software.The influence of the suction-mode and suction port height on the radial velocity/pressure distributions and sweeping area was investigated.The simulated results show that the suction-mode and port-height have a major impact.To be specific,the direct and tornado modes have the radial velocity distributions with single-peak and double-peak,and have the radial pressure distributions with a valley and a peak,respectively.When it comes to effective sweeping area,the tornado-mode outperforms the direct-mode,because the vertical velocity profile(the sweeping area) is higher(wider) than(that) of direct-mode and because atmospheric pressure has a less strong impact.We suggest that the simulated results be of some technological interest in road-sweeper design.