Issue |
EPL
Volume 145, Number 3, February 2024
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | 30001 | |
Number of page(s) | 7 | |
Section | General physics | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/ad2340 | |
Published online | 23 February 2024 |
The formation of large aggregates by Brownian growth and the onset of a runaway process
1 Technische Universität Braunschweig, Institute of Geophysics and extraterrestrial Physics - Mendelssohnstr. 3, 38106 Braunschweig, Germany
2 Université Libre de Bruxelles, Microgravity Research Center - CP 165/62 Avenue F.D. Roosevelt 50, 1050 Bruxelles, Belgium
Received: 25 November 2023
Accepted: 26 January 2024
In an experiment onboard a microgravity sounding rocket, we observed the growth of agglomerates consisting of silica spheres under well-defined conditions. After an initial short charge-induced growth phase, the charge-neutralized agglomerates grew due to Brownian-motion–induced collisions, first in an orderly fashion and thereafter, due to the temporal increase in particle concentration, in a runaway process. The latter is characterized by the detachment of large oligarch agglomerates. We modeled the growth using a mean-field approximation as well as a Monte Carlo technique.
© 2024 The author(s)
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