Microscopic balance equation

Macroscopic and Microscopic Balances Three postulates, regarded as laws of physics, are fundamental in fluid mechanics. These are conservation of mass, conservation of momentum, and con-servation of energy. In addition, two other postulates, conservation of moment of momentum (angular momentum) and the entropy inequality (second law of thermodynamics) have occasional use. The conservation principles may be applied either to material systems or to control volumes in space. Most often, control volumes are used. The control volumes may be either of finite or differential size, resulting in either algebraic or differential consei vation equations, respectively. These are often called macroscopic and microscopic balance equations. 

Microscopic Balance Equations Partial differential balance equations express the conservation principles at a point in space. Equations for mass, momentum, totaf energy, and mechanical energy may be found in Whitaker (ibid.). Bird, Stewart, and Lightfoot (Transport Phenomena, Wiley, New York, 1960), and Slattery (Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer in Continua, 2d ed., Krieger, Huntington, N.Y., 1981), for example. These references also present the equations in other useful coordinate systems besides the cartesian system. The coordinate systems are fixed in inertial reference frames. The two most used equations, for mass and momentum, are presented here. 

This problem requires use of the microscopic balance equations because the velocity is to he determined as a function of position. The boundary conditions for this flow result from the no-slip condition. AU three velocity components must he zero at the plate surfaces, y = H/2 and y = —H/2. 

When applying CFD to model a chemical reactor, we are interested in knowing how the basic quantities (density, velocity, concentrations, etc.) vary with the spatial location in the reactor at a given time instant. The starting point for developing a CFD model is the microscopic balance equation, described in detail in standard textbooks on transport phenomena (Bird et al., 2002). Letting O denote a quantity of interest, the general form of its microscopic balance... 

In the formulation of the microscopic balance equations, the molecular nature of matter is ignored and the medium is viewed as a continuum. Specifically, the assumption is made that the mathematical points over which the balance field-equations hold are big enough to be characterized by property values that have been averaged over a large number of molecules, so that from point to point there are no discontinuities. Furthermore, local equilibrium is assumed. That is, although transport processes may be fast and irreversible (dissipative), from the thermodynamics point of view, the assumption is made that, locally, the molecules establish equilibrium very quickly. 

Many authors have addressed the mathematical problem of averaging microscopic balance equations in order to derive macroscopic model formulations. However, the result is always a set of equations in which extra terms involving integrals over the microscopic domains remain. While various hypotheses may be made about interfacial closure laws expressing these extra terms as functions of the solution variables, it is not clear that such laws always exist, what form they should take and what approximations may be implied in their use. 

The application of similar advanced distribution functions in the context of population balance analysis of polymerization processes is familiar in reaction engineering [40, 97]. However, the microscopic balance equations used for this purpose are normally averaged over the whole reactor volume so that simplified macroscopic (global) reactor analysis of the chemical process behavior is generally performed [35]. 

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