A NEXT-GENERATION STARSTREAM DEVICE
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Southampton
Department Name: Faculty of Engineering & the Environment
Abstract
An activated stream ultrasonic cleaning device called StarStream has been invented by scientists for cleaning purposes with the advantage of cleaning sufficiently using cold water without need for the use of additives. The basis of cleaning in StarStream is resonated microbubbles. The commercial version of the device lacks essential details that have been introduced in the patent of the invention. Therefore, the performance of the commercial model is not as good as expected.
The aim of this thesis is to design an upgraded model of the StarStream by applying the techniques described in the patent. In the first section of this project, an experiment is completed that evaluates the performance of the device on cleaning grease. Then, a visualisation chamber is designed for monitoring the microbubbles flowing in the stream. The chamber itself is analysed with different techniques to detect potential errors. An experiment procedure and Matlab script are developed for microbubble analysis. Different off-gassers are designed and tested to remove bubbles from the flow prior to the input of the device. A bubble generator is designed exclusively for evaluating the performance of the out-gassers. This results in selection of the best performing off -gasser, which is suitable for the purposes of this project. Having identified a method of emoving wrong sized bubbles from the liquid, future work will investigate (i) ensuring this out-gasser can work for sustained periods, and (ii) potential bubble generator techniques to introduce the type of bubbles that are critical for cleaning into the previously bubble-free water, i.e. that inject correctly sized bubbles into the flow and activate them by ultrasound as soon as they reach the contaminated object.
The aim of this thesis is to design an upgraded model of the StarStream by applying the techniques described in the patent. In the first section of this project, an experiment is completed that evaluates the performance of the device on cleaning grease. Then, a visualisation chamber is designed for monitoring the microbubbles flowing in the stream. The chamber itself is analysed with different techniques to detect potential errors. An experiment procedure and Matlab script are developed for microbubble analysis. Different off-gassers are designed and tested to remove bubbles from the flow prior to the input of the device. A bubble generator is designed exclusively for evaluating the performance of the out-gassers. This results in selection of the best performing off -gasser, which is suitable for the purposes of this project. Having identified a method of emoving wrong sized bubbles from the liquid, future work will investigate (i) ensuring this out-gasser can work for sustained periods, and (ii) potential bubble generator techniques to introduce the type of bubbles that are critical for cleaning into the previously bubble-free water, i.e. that inject correctly sized bubbles into the flow and activate them by ultrasound as soon as they reach the contaminated object.