The rate at which solid particles sediment under the action of gravity can be greatly enhanced if the walls of the settling vessel are inclined rather than vertical. This phenomenon, often referred to as "The Boycott Effect", plays an increasingly important role in a variety of separation processes because, in principle, the sedimentation rate can be enhanced by several orders of magnitude if the vessel is properly designed. Recently, a theory has been developed for modeling such systems; a key restriction of that theory which required that the particle Reynolds number be vanishingly small will now be relaxed in an approximate manner and the resulting theoretical predictions will be tested experimentally. The overall objective of this research is to develop a reliable theoretical framework for modeling the operation of supersettlers under conditions encountered in practice.
