Particle Tracking of Microplastics in Aquatic Environments
Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Program
Applied mechanics (MPAME), MSc
Publicerad
2021
Författare
Nandakumar, Sourav
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
Microplastics in aquatic environments emerged as a leading environmental problem
in recent times. The identification, standardisation and removal of those is a seri ous concern. This study aims at discussing the effect of biofouling on the vertical
transport of plastic particles in laminar and turbulent flow conditions. The effects
of turbulence are studied with a stochastic approach. All the studies are based on
the Lagrangian Particle Tracking approach to track the trajectory of particles due to
vertical transport accounting the seawater parameters of North Pacific. The effect
of biofouling and the defouling is studied on both buoyant and non-buoyant particles.
In the turbulent flow condition, regardless of the type of plastic, for smaller radii all
plastics behaved similar as the statistics shows that the turbulent fluctuations are
dominant and the sediment velocity of the particle is negligible, thus meaning the
particles behaves more as tracers
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
Biofouling, Stochastic Tracking, Trajectory, Vertical Transport, Turbulent Dispersion