title: Kinetic study of coupled field-induced aggregation and sedimentation processes arising in magnetic fluids.
abstract: In this work, the kinetics of coupled aggregation and sedimentation processes arising in magnetic fluids has been studied. Aggregation was induced applying a constant uniaxial magnetic field. The time evolution of the cluster-size distribution and the weight-average chain length was monitored using optical microscopy and digital image analysis. The experimental results are compared with the corresponding solutions of Smoluchowski's equation. For this purpose, a recently proposed aggregation kernel was employed. When sedimentation effects are taken into account, the fits improve especially at long aggregation times.
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Physics, University of Granada, Campus de Fuentenueva, Granada, Spain.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Martínez-Pedrero
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: El-Harrak
authors.forename: J C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Fernández-Toledano
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tirado-Miranda
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Baudry
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Schmitt
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bibette
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Callejas-Fernández