Study of Mean Free Path Effects on Growth of Ultrafine Metallic Aerosols

This is the final report of activities on a study of metallic aerosol growth under reduced pressure conditions. The aersol produced is very complex in shape, and the use of fractal descriptors was investigated. The report details the kind of fractal analysis used. It shows that the particles have fractal characteristics that describes stages of growth and that the pressure under which the particles are grown does influence the growth structure. At very low pressures, the particles fail to form because of chamber size limitations. The conclusions reached in the report show some of the utility of fractal analysis for investigating irregular particle shapes, some of the pressure effects on formation of metallic aerosols of different compositions, and extrapolations of the growth conditions to lower pressures.