Asymptotic Behavior of Aerosol Growth in the Free Molecule Regime

Abstract

Although the asymptotic behavior of aerosol growth by condensation/evaporation and by coalescence has been well established independently, no complete theory is available for such simultaneous processes. In this paper, through the use of a supercomputer, it is shown that asymptotic limit-size distributions exist for mass conserved systems when condensation/evaporation and coalescence occur simultaneously in the free molecule regime. Unlike the independent growth process either by condensation/evaporation or by coalescence, “crossover” or change from one dominating growth process to another growth process takes place continuously. It is also demonstrated that substantial savings in central processing unit time on a supercomputer can be achieved by restructuring the numerical algorithm and by vectorizing the inner DO loops.