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Laboratory model for plastic fragmentation in the turbulent ocean

Physical Review Fluids 2021 38 citations ? Citation count from OpenAlex, updated daily. May differ slightly from the publisher's own count. Score: 40 ? 0–100 AI score estimating relevance to the microplastics field. Papers below 30 are filtered from public browse.

Emmanuel Villermaux, Christophe Brouzet, Raphaël Guiné, Marie-Julie Dalbe, Gautier Verhille Marie-Julie Dalbe, Gautier Verhille Benjamin Favier, Nicolas Vandenberghe, Emmanuel Villermaux, Gautier Verhille

Summary

Researchers used laboratory experiments and numerical simulations to study how deformable and brittle fibers fragment in turbulent flow, finding that fragmentation is limited at small scales by a physical cut-off length determined by fluid-structure interactions, with implications for understanding microplastic generation in the ocean.

Study Type Environmental

We study the fragmentation of deformable and brittle fibers in the inertial range of turbulence using laboratory experiments and numerical simulations. The fragmentation process is shown to be limited at small scales by a physical cut-off length due to fluid-structure interactions of the object with turbulence, and thus independent of the fiber brittleness. This scenario, comprehensively modeled by an evolution equation, leads to the accumulation of fragments slightly longer than the cut-off scale, as smaller fragments are too short to be deformed and broken by the turbulence. This result may improve our understanding of microplastic formation in the ocean.

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