Length reduction of fibres subject to breakage

Abstract

A statistical analysis of the breakage of essentially one-dimensional materials (fibres) has been performed. This breakage process has been characterized by two independent frequency functions, one specifying the proportion of fibres of a certain length that are broken per unit of time, and the other specifying the number and distribution of fragments. From these two functions the process equation giving the fibre length distribution at any instant has been derived. With certain limiting conditions this equation has been solved with respect to the moments of the fibre length distribution function.