Experimental and numerical study of the interaction between fluid flow and filtering media on the macroscopic scale

The present study was devoted to the experimental and numerical investigation of the interaction of a fluid with a deformable filtering medium. Optical tools were used for the in-situ measurement of the flow-induced deformation of a flat filtering medium in a test channel. Based on a recently developed mathematical model for a poroelastic plate, a numerical method for the coupled simulation of flow and deformation was implemented and validated by comparison with the experimental data. The good quantitative agreement between measurements and numerical results suggests that it is possible to simulate the poroelastic behavior of filtering media under operating conditions in a reliable way.