title: Clogging time of a filter.
abstract: We study the time until a filter becomes clogged due to the trapping of suspended particles as they pass through a porous medium. This trapping progressively impedes and eventually stops the flow of the carrier fluid. We develop a simple description for the pore geometry and the motion of the suspended particles which, together with extreme-value statistics, predicts that the distribution of times until a filter clogs has a power-law long-time tail, with an infinite mean clogging time. These results and its consequences are in accord with simulations on a square lattice porous network.
authors.affiliation: Center for BioDynamics, Center for Polymer Studies, and Department of Physics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Redner
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Datta