DAVID LEE DAVIDSON

Solutia, Inc.

Cantonment, Florida

Continuum mechanics, one of our most successful physical theories, is readily applicable to the process industries. In continuum mechanics, the existence of molecules is ignored, and matter is treated as a continuous medium. The continuum hypothesis is valid, provided the equations of continuum mechanics are applied at sufficiently large length scales and time scales that the properties of individual molecules are not noticed. The mapping of the laws of mass, momentum, and energy conservation to the continuum results in field equations that describe the dynamics of the continuum. These field equations, variously known as the equations of motion, the equations of change, or simply the conservation equations, are nonlinear, partial differential equations that can be solved, in principle, when combined with the appropriate constitutive information¹ and boundary conditions.

Continuum mechanics is the mechanical analog of classical electrodynamics, in which a set of field equations (Maxwell’s equations) describe the dynamics of the relevant variables of the electrical and magnetic fields. Whereas Maxwell’s equations are linear unless the constitutive behavior is nonlinear, the equations of continuum mechanics are nonlinear, regardless of the constitutive behavior of the materials of interest. The inherent nonlinearity of the conservation equations, which is due to convective transport of momentum, energy, and

Front Matter (R1-R10)

Chemical and Molecular Engineering in the 21st Century (1-28)

Technology for Human Beings (29-52)

The Future of Nuclear Energy (53-90)

Engineering Challenges for Quantum Information Technology (91-108)

Dinner Speech (109-118)

Appendix: Contributors (119-126)

Appendix: Program (127-130)

Appendix: Participants (131-140)