Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 October 2009
Introduction
Fluids, that is gases and liquids, are self–evidently prerequisites for normal life. They also play a major role in the production of many artefacts and in the operation of much of the equipment upon which modern life depends. Occasionally, a fluid is the ultimate result of a technological process, such as a liquid or gaseous fuel, so that its existence impinges directly on the public consciousness. More often, fluids are intermediates in processes yielding solid materials or objects, and are then contained within solid objects so that their public image is very much less and their significance not fully appreciated. Nevertheless, every single component of modern life relies upon a fluid at some point and therefore upon our understanding of the fluid state.
The gross behavioral features of a fluid are well understood in the sense that it is easy to grasp that a gas has the property to completely fill any container and that a liquid can be made to flow by the imposition of a very small force. However, beyond these qualitative features lie a wide range of thermophysical and thermochemical properties of fluids that determine their response to external stimuli. This analysis concentrates exclusively on thermophysical properties and will not consider any process that involves a change to the molecular entities that comprise the fluid.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.