Aggregation and fragmentation dynamics of inertial particles in chaotic flows

Abstract

Inertial particles advected in chaotic flows often accumulate in strange attractors. While moving in these fractal sets they usually approach each other and collide. Here we consider inertial particles aggregating upon collision. The new particles formed in this process are larger and follow the equation of motion with a new parameter. These particles can in turn fragment when they reach a certain size or shear forces become sufficiently large. The resulting system consists of a large set of coexisting dynamical systems with a varying number of particles. We find that the combination of aggregation and fragmentation leads to an asymptotic steady state. The asymptotic particle size distribution depends on the mechanism of fragmentation. The size distributions resulting from this model are consistent with those found in rain drop statistics and in stirring tank experiments.

4 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (5)

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Cited by in corpus (7)

• Advection of Inertial Particles in the Presence of the History Force: Higher Order Numerical Schemes
• Influence of the history force on inertial particle advection: Gravitational effects and horizontal diffusion
• Particle-based modelling of aggregation and fragmentation processes: Fractal-like aggregates
• Coagulation and fragmentation dynamics of inertial particles
• What Determines Size Distributions of Heavy Drops in a Synthetic Turbulent Flow?
• Aggregation and fragmentation dynamics in random flows: From tracers to inertial aggregates
• A map for heavy inertial particles in fluid flows