SIZE CHARACTERIZATION OF ASBESTOS FIBERS BY MEANS OF ELECTROSTATIC ALIGNMENT AND LIGHT-SCATTERING TECHNIQUES

Crocidolite asbestos fibers suspended in light mineral oil were aligned by means of an electrostatic field of 1500 V/cm. The maximum fiber concentration was approximately 8-mu-g/mL. The light scattered by the suspended fibers, with the incident laser beam normal to the fiber axis, was recorded by two probes: one rotating about the fiber axis and another rotating about the incident beam near the forward direction, i.e., 17.5-degrees from the incident beam. The Rayleigh-Debye-Gans theory was utilized in order to determine the modal diameter and modal aspect ratio of assumed logarithmic normal distribution functions in both the fiber diameter and the fiber aspect ratio. Multiple scattering effects were assumed to be negligible.