Fig. 9. Schematic illustration of the process of fracture and recombination of asphaltene molecular aggregate under shear interactions: (a) contains two aggregates, (b) two aggregates break into three aggregates, (c) the yellow aggregates gradually move to the right, and in (d) the distance between the yellow aggregates and the other aggregates less than 4.7 Å, so the two aggregates merge into a larger one. The quantitative criterion is that the distance between the centers of mass of the two asphaltene molecules ≤4.7 Å.