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Tortuosity
Tortuosity is widely used as a critical parameter to predict transport properties of porous media, such as rocks and soils. But unlike other standard microstructural properties, the concept of tortuosity is vague with multiple definitions and various evaluation methods introduced in different contexts. Hydraulic, electrical, diffusional, and thermal tortuosities are defined to describe different transport processes in porous media, while geometrical tortuosity is introduced to characterize the morphological property of porous microstructures. Tortuosity in 2-D Subjective estimation (sometimes aided by optometric grading scales) is often used. The simplest mathematical method to estimate tortuosity is the arc-chord ratio: the ratio of the length of the curve (''C'') to the distance between its ends (''L''): :\tau = \frac Arc-chord ratio equals 1 for a straight line and is infinite for a circle. Another method, proposed in 1999, is to estimate the tortuosity as the integral of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tortuosity Via Geodesic Distance Calculation
Tortuosity is widely used as a critical parameter to predict transport properties of porous media, such as rocks and soils. But unlike other standard microstructural properties, the concept of tortuosity is vague with multiple definitions and various evaluation methods introduced in different contexts. Hydraulic, electrical, diffusional, and thermal tortuosities are defined to describe different transport processes in porous media, while geometrical tortuosity is introduced to characterize the morphological property of porous microstructures. Tortuosity in 2-D Subjective estimation (sometimes aided by optometric grading scales) is often used. The simplest mathematical method to estimate tortuosity is the arc-chord ratio: the ratio of the length of the curve (''C'') to the distance between its ends (''L''): :\tau = \frac Arc-chord ratio equals 1 for a straight line and is infinite for a circle. Another method, proposed in 1999, is to estimate the tortuosity as the integral o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Porous Medium
A porous medium or a porous material is a material containing pores (voids). The skeletal portion of the material is often called the "matrix" or "frame". The pores are typically filled with a fluid ( liquid or gas). The skeletal material is usually a solid, but structures like foams are often also usefully analyzed using concept of porous media. A porous medium is most often characterised by its porosity. Other properties of the medium (e.g. permeability, tensile strength, electrical conductivity, tortuosity) can sometimes be derived from the respective properties of its constituents (solid matrix and fluid) and the media porosity and pores structure, but such a derivation is usually complex. Even the concept of porosity is only straightforward for a poroelastic medium. Often both the solid matrix and the pore network (also known as the pore space) are continuous, so as to form two interpenetrating continua such as in a sponge. However, there is also a concept of closed poro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brain
A brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It is located in the head, usually close to the sensory organs for senses such as vision. It is the most complex organ in a vertebrate's body. In a human, the cerebral cortex contains approximately 14–16 billion neurons, and the estimated number of neurons in the cerebellum is 55–70 billion. Each neuron is connected by synapses to several thousand other neurons. These neurons typically communicate with one another by means of long fibers called axons, which carry trains of signal pulses called action potentials to distant parts of the brain or body targeting specific recipient cells. Physiologically, brains exert centralized control over a body's other organs. They act on the rest of the body both by generating patterns of muscle activity and by driving the secretion of chemicals called hormones. This centralized control allows rapid and coordinated responses ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gel Permeation Chromatography
Gel permeation chromatography (GPC) is a type of size-exclusion chromatography (SEC), that separates analytes on the basis of size, typically in organic solvents. The technique is often used for the analysis of polymers. As a technique, SEC was first developed in 1955 by Lathe and Ruthven.Lathe, G.H.; Ruthven, C.R.J. The Separation of Substance and '1956', ''62'', 665–674. The term ''gel permeation chromatography'' can be traced back to J.C. Moore of the Dow Chemical Company who investigated the technique in 1964. The proprietary column technology was licensed to Waters Corporation, who subsequently commercialized this technology in 1964.Moore, J.C. Gel permeation chromatography. I. A new method for molecular weight distribution of high polymers. ''J. Polym. Sci.'', 1964, ''2'', 835-84 GPC systems and consumables are now also available from a number of manufacturers. It is often necessary to separate polymers, both to analyze them as well as to purify the desired product. When c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polymer
A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + ''-mer'', "part") is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic and natural polymers play essential and ubiquitous roles in everyday life. Polymers range from familiar synthetic plastics such as polystyrene to natural biopolymers such as DNA and proteins that are fundamental to biological structure and function. Polymers, both natural and synthetic, are created via polymerization of many small molecules, known as monomers. Their consequently large molecular mass, relative to small molecule compounds, produces unique physical properties including toughness, high elasticity, viscoelasticity, and a tendency to form amorphous and semicrystalline structures rather than crystals. The term "polymer" derives from the Greek word πολύς (''polus'', meaning "many, much") and μέρος (''meros'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Analytical Chemistry
Analytical chemistry studies and uses instruments and methods to separate, identify, and quantify matter. In practice, separation, identification or quantification may constitute the entire analysis or be combined with another method. Separation isolates analytes. Qualitative analysis identifies analytes, while quantitative analysis determines the numerical amount or concentration. Analytical chemistry consists of classical, wet chemical methods and modern, instrumental methods. Classical qualitative methods use separations such as precipitation, extraction, and distillation. Identification may be based on differences in color, odor, melting point, boiling point, solubility, radioactivity or reactivity. Classical quantitative analysis uses mass or volume changes to quantify amount. Instrumental methods may be used to separate samples using chromatography, electrophoresis or field flow fractionation. Then qualitative and quantitative analysis can be performed, often with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sound Propagation
In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the brain. Only acoustic waves that have frequencies lying between about 20 Hz and 20 kHz, the audio frequency range, elicit an auditory percept in humans. In air at atmospheric pressure, these represent sound waves with wavelengths of to . Sound waves above 20 kHz are known as ultrasound and are not audible to humans. Sound waves below 20 Hz are known as infrasound. Different animal species have varying hearing ranges. Acoustics Acoustics is the interdisciplinary science that deals with the study of mechanical waves in gasses, liquids, and solids including vibration, sound, ultrasound, and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an ''acoustician'', while someone working in the field of acoustic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maurice Anthony Biot
Maurice Anthony Biot (May 25, 1905 – September 12, 1985) was a Belgian-American applied physicist. He made contributions in thermodynamics, aeronautics, geophysics, earthquake engineering, and electromagnetism. Particularly, he was accredited as the founder of the theory of poroelasticity. Born in Antwerp, Belgium, Biot studied at Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium where he received a bachelor's degrees in philosophy (1927), mining engineering (1929) and electrical engineering (1930), and Doctor of Science in 1931. He obtained his Ph.D. in Aeronautical Science from the California Institute of Technology in 1932 under Theodore von Kármán. In 1930s and 1940s Biot worked at Harvard University, the Catholic University of Leuven, Columbia University and Brown University, and later for a number of companies and government agencies, including NASA during the Space Program in the 1960s. Since 1969, Biot became a private consultant for various companies and agencies, and part ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acoustics
Acoustics is a branch of physics that deals with the study of mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including topics such as vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician while someone working in the field of acoustics technology may be called an acoustical engineer. The application of acoustics is present in almost all aspects of modern society with the most obvious being the audio and noise control industries. Hearing is one of the most crucial means of survival in the animal world and speech is one of the most distinctive characteristics of human development and culture. Accordingly, the science of acoustics spreads across many facets of human society—music, medicine, architecture, industrial production, warfare and more. Likewise, animal species such as songbirds and frogs use sound and hearing as a key element of mating rituals or for marking territories. Art, craft, science and technology have ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fuel Cell
A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts the chemical energy of a fuel (often hydrogen fuel, hydrogen) and an oxidizing agent (often oxygen) into electricity through a pair of redox reactions. Fuel cells are different from most battery (electricity), batteries in requiring a continuous source of fuel and oxygen (usually from air) to sustain the chemical reaction, whereas in a battery the chemical energy usually comes from substances that are already present in the battery. Fuel cells can produce electricity continuously for as long as fuel and oxygen are supplied. The first fuel cells were invented by Sir William Robert Grove, William Grove in 1838. The first commercial use of fuel cells came more than a century later following the invention of the hydrogen–oxygen fuel cell by Francis Thomas Bacon in 1932. The alkaline fuel cell, also known as the Bacon fuel cell after its inventor, has been used in NASA space programs since the mid-1960s to generate power for sat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heterogeneous Catalysis
In chemistry, heterogeneous catalysis is catalysis where the phase of catalysts differs from that of the reactants or products. The process contrasts with homogeneous catalysis where the reactants, products and catalyst exist in the same phase. Phase distinguishes between not only solid, liquid, and gas components, but also immiscible mixtures (e.g. oil and water), or anywhere an interface is present. Heterogeneous catalysis typically involves solid phase catalysts and gas phase reactants. In this case, there is a cycle of molecular adsorption, reaction, and desorption occurring at the catalyst surface. Thermodynamics, mass transfer, and heat transfer influence the rate (kinetics) of reaction. Heterogeneous catalysis is very important because it enables faster, large-scale production and the selective product formation. Approximately 35% of the world's GDP is influenced by catalysis. The production of 90% of chemicals (by volume) is assisted by solid catalysts. The chemical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
