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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.


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