Assumptions
When using the residence time equation, a variety of assumptions are made to reduce the complexity of the system being modeled. These assumptions include, but are not limited to: steady state inflow and outflow, constant volume, constant temperature, and uniform distribution of the substance throughout the volume of the system. It is also assumed that chemical degradation (chemical decomposition) does not occur in the system in question and that particles do not adsorb onto surfaces that would hinder their flow. If chemical degradation were to occur in a system, the substance that originally entered the system may react with other existing compounds in the system, causing the residence time to be significantly shorter since the substance would be chemically consumed and effectively be removed from the system before it was able to naturally flow out of the system.
Read more about this topic: Residence Time
Famous quotes containing the word assumptions:
“Unlike Boswell, whose Journals record a long and unrewarded search for a self, Johnson possessed a formidable one. His life in London—he arrived twenty-five years earlier than Boswell—turned out to be a long defense of the values of Augustan humanism against the pressures of other possibilities. In contrast to Boswell, Johnson possesses an identity not because he has gone in search of one, but because of his allegiance to a set of assumptions that he regards as objectively true.”
—Jeffrey Hart (b. 1930)
“Assumptions of male superiority are as widespread and deep rooted and every bit as crippling to the woman as the assumptions of white supremacy are to the Negro.... this is no more a man’s world than it is a white world.”
—Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, African American civil rights organization. SNCC Position Paper (Women in the Movement)
“Why did he think adding meant increase?
To me it was dilution. Where do these
Innate assumptions come from?”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)