The fragmentation of solid objects in turbulence is of paramount importance in a large number of situations, especially for marine plastic pollution where small plastic debris are formed by the fragmentation of plastic litter under hydrodynamic forces. Up to now, investigations have focused on the fragmentation of particle aggregates in turbulent flows. Here we study the fragmentation of a single deformable object that behaves elastically up to breakage, in the inertial range of turbulence. Using laboratory experiments with glass fibers as a model system, complemented by numerical simulations and theoretical analyses, we exhibit a comprehensive fragmentation scenario, further modeled by an evolution equation. Our results demonstrate that the fragmentation process is limited at small scales by a physical cutoff length originating from the fluid-structure interactions between the objects and the turbulence, and therefore independent of the brittleness of the fibers. This scenario leads to the accumulation of fragments with a typical length slightly longer than the cutoff scale, as smaller fragments are too short to be deformed and broken by the turbulence.

中文翻译：

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湍流海洋中塑料破碎的实验室模型

在许多情况下，湍流中的固体物体破碎是至关重要的，尤其是对于海洋塑料污染而言，在水动力作用下，塑料垃圾的破碎会形成小的塑料碎片。迄今为止，研究集中在湍流中颗粒聚集体的破碎上。在这里，我们研究在湍流的惯性范围内，弹性变形直至破裂的单个可变形物体的破碎。使用玻璃纤维作为模型系统的实验室实验，辅以数值模拟和理论分析，我们展示了一个完整的破碎情况，并通过一个演化方程进行了进一步建模。我们的结果表明，碎裂过程在小范围内受到源于物体与湍流之间流体-结构相互作用的物理截止长度的限制，因此与纤维的脆性无关。由于较小的碎片太短而无法被湍流变形和破坏，因此这种情况会导致碎片的堆积，其典型长度略大于截止尺度。