FiltEST – Filter Element Simulation Toolbox

Today’s filter elements have to meet increasing requirements concerning their operating time, filtration efficiency and dirt hold capacity. Additional aspects such as an efficient production of the devices and ecological sustainability are of growing importance when deciding about the product design and the materials involved. At the same time filter element manufacturers are confronted with the need to accelerate their product innovation processes. However, an exclusive use of real-world proto-types for evaluating a filter design is very costly and particularly time-consuming. Specialized simulation software has proven to be an extremely effective means to shorten the developmental period.

More than ten years of expertise and experience in filtration modeling and simulation have flown into the newly developed Filter Element Simulation Toolbox (FiltEST) developed in the Department for Flow and Material Simulation (SMS) at the Fraunhofer ITWM in Kaiserslautern The core of this software family consists of the modules to perform the numerical simulation of

• the flow through the filter housing and medium,
• the particles’ transport with the flow and
• the particles’ deposition in the filter medium.

The obtained knowledge of the velocity field, the pressure distribution, the particle concentrations and depositions allow the assessment of a design’s main performance properties without the need for a real-world prototype.

FiltEST allows  the user to deal with a large part of the work flow in virtual product design. Among others, there are modules for

• the import of CAD geometries and their conversion into appropriate computational grids,
• robust fitting of filtration model parameters from experimental data,
• exporting the computed results to file formats that allow for effective visualization.

A graphical user interface facilitates the use of the different modules and makes the realization of larger simulation projects controllable. Thanks to its modular structure, FiltEST can be extended by custom-made solutions for your specific application needs.