Design of fibrous filter media based on the
simulation of pore size measures

Filtration media including woven cloths, nonwoven, membranes and 
particulate beds are used in a wide variety of applications such 
as biotech, health care, pharmaceutical, food and beverages, power 
sources and chemical industries. One way to characterise the 
performance of all these filtration media is by the pore structure 
characteristics of the media. Several experimental techniques are 
available to measure such characteristics, each of them producing a 
different outcome.
Having the aim to find the optimal design of filtration media with 
numerical simulations, it is necessary to be able to predict the 
outcome of pore size measurements as this allows a comparison of 
virtually created filtration media with existing filtration media.
This paper focusses on the numerical simulation of mercury intrusion 
porosimetry and liquid extrusion porosimetry. First, the numerical 
method will be introduced and applied on a sample nonwoven. Results 
of both methods will be presented and related to the real pore 
structure of the medium.
Afterwards, the influence of a change in a single production parameter 
on the pore distribution will be investigated exemplarily. Finally - to 
validate the method ~ the numerical results will be compared with 
experimental findings.