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Science 7 August 1992:
Vol. 257. no. 5071, pp. 754 - 760
DOI: 10.1126/science.257.5071.754
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Articles

Chaos, Symmetry, and Self-Similarity: Exploiting Order and Disorder in Mixing Processes

J. M. Ottino 1, F. J. Muzzio 2, M. Tjahjadi 3, J. G. Franjione 4, S. C. Jana 1, and H. A. Kusch 5

1 Department of Chemical Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208
2 Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08855
3 At General Electric Corporate R&D, Post Office Box 8, Schenectady, NY 12301
4 Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309
5 At Chevron Oil Field Research Company, Post Office Box 446, La Habra, CA 90633

Fluid mixing is a successful application of chaos. Theory anticipates the coexistence of order and disorder—symmetry and chaos—as well as self-similarity and multifractality arising from repeated stretching and folding. Experiments and computations, in turn, provide a point of confluence and a visual analog for chaotic behavior, multiplicative processes, and scaling behavior. All these concepts have conceptual engineering counterparts: examples arise in the context of flow classification, design of mixing devices, enhancement of transport processes, and controlled structure formation in two-phase systems.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Visualization of Three-Dimensional Chaos.
G. O. Fountain, D. V. Khakhar, and J. M. Ottino (1998)
Science 281, 683-686
   Abstract »    Full Text »
Particles Floating on a Moving Fluid: A Dynamically Comprehensible Physical Fractal.
J. C. Sommerer and E. Ott (1993)
Science 259, 335-339
   Abstract »    PDF »


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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)