Fig. 1. Nondimensional size distribution function r_k(t) evaluated by solving the full model system of discrete equations (solid line) and the similarity solution (dashed line) at the nondimensional times 100, 200, 300, 400 and 500.

Fig. 2. Same as Fig. 1 but now the dashed line is the similarity solution corrected by replacing 1+3s⁻¹−3χ^2/3/2 instead of 1−3χ^2/3/2 in (35).

Fig. 3. (a) Monomer concentration c(t) evaluated using: (i) the numerical solution of the discrete equations of the model (solid line), (ii) the local theory (48) (dashed line), (iii) Schaldach and Wolfer’s moment equations (dot-dashed line), and (iv) the self-similar solution having a vertical asymptote at t=0 (thin solid line). (b) Same as in (a) for a larger range of times. All variables are written in dimensionless units.

Fig. 4. Dimensionless size distribution function r_k(t) calculated using the numerical solution of the full model discrete equations (solid line) and the local theory (48) (dashed line) at the nondimensional times 100, 200, 300, 400 and 500.

Fig. 5. Nondimensional size distribution function r_k(t) evaluated using the composite solution (61) and (62) (dashed line) and the numerical solution of the full model discrete equations (solid line) at the nondimensional times 300, 400 and 500.

Fig. 6. Nondimensional size distribution function r_k(t) of (29) and (45) with monomer concentration given by the moment equations (64), (65) and (66) (dashed line) and the numerical solution of the full model discrete equations (solid line). Times are as in Fig. 3.