Modeling stochastic fibre clumps Original Research Article

Analysis of stochastic fibrous structures like those of paper and nonwoven fabrics reveals the results of interactions among fibres in the fluidized phase prior to forming by filtration. Experimental data suggests that fibres aggregate in clumps with a size distribution that is approximately lognormal, having standard deviation increasing with a power of the mean. Here we provide a model for the evolution of such clumps, using a gamma distribution to parameterize random walks; this allows a two-parameter control of departure from the random case of independent fibres.