Experimental Investigation of Aerodynamic Dust Resuspension Due to Foot Step

Abstract

The particulate matter on the floor is at first detached and resuspended from the floor and then redistributed by human activities (i.e. walking). The objective of this paper is to investigate experimentally particle resuspension and redistribution due to human foot motion. The flow visualization with actual foot tapping was also carried out to demonstrate the particle resuspension. The experiments were carried out by flow visualization and Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) measurements. To define the measurements better, the foot was modeled either as a disk, an elongated plate or a slipper-wearing foot model, that moved normal to the ground. The results indicate that particles can be resuspended with the walking process by aerodynamic mechanism. The particles resuspension is caused by wall jet between the foot and floor, and the particles redistribution takes place by the vortex dynamics.