Articles | Volume 31, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-31-25-2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-31-25-2024
Research article
 | 
17 Jan 2024
Research article |  | 17 Jan 2024

Aggregation of slightly buoyant microplastics in 3D vortex flows

Irina I. Rypina, Lawrence J. Pratt, and Michael Dotzel

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Cited articles

Andrady, A. L.: Microplastics in the marine environment, Marine Pollut. B., 62, 1596–1605, 2011. 
Basset, A. B.: Treatise on Hydrodynamics, Deighton Bell, London, vol. 2, chap. 22, 285–297, 1988. 
Beron-Vera, F. J.: Nonlinear dynamics of inertial particles in the ocean: From drifters and floats to marine debris and Sargassum, Nonlin. Dynam., 103, 1–26, 2021. 
Beron-Vera, F. J., Brown, M. G., Olascoaga, M. J., Rypina, I. I., Kocak, H., and Udovydchenkov, I. A.: Zonal jets as transport barriers in planetary atmospheres, J. Atmos. Sci., 65, 3316–3326, 2008. 
Beron-Vera, F. J., Olascoaga, M. J., Brown, M. G., Kocak, H., and Rypina, I. I.: Invariant-tori-like Lagrangian coherent structures in geophysical flows, Chaos, 20, 017514, https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3271342, 2010. 
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Short summary
This paper investigates the aggregation of small, spherical, slightly buoyant, rigid particles in a simple 3D vortex flow. Our goal was to gain insights into the behaviour of slightly buoyant marine microplastics in a flow that qualitatively resembles ocean eddies. Attractors are mapped out for the steady, axisymmetric; steady, asymmetric; and nonsteady, asymmetric vortices over a range of flow and particle parameters. Simple theoretical arguments are used to interpret the results.