Elementary Introduction to Spatial and Temporal Fractals

The concepts of spatial and temporal fractals are applied to many scientific and engineering problems. The authors are professors in chemical engineering and statistics. They introduce fractals without mathematical rigor for students and practitioners. Many simple examples illustrate the book.

1. Introduction.- 2. Fundamental Concepts and Definitions.- 3. Examples of Fractal Geometry.- 3.1 Cantor Set (0 < dF < 1).- 3.2 Rugged Lines (1 < dF ? 2).- 3.3 Irregular Surface (2 < dF ? 3).- 3.4 Growth Processes.- 4. Fractals in Time.- 4.1 Change of Commodity Prices.- 4.2 Fractional Brownian Motion.- 4.3 Fractal Stochastic Processes.- 5. Fractals in Chaos.- 5.1 Quantification of Chaos.- 6. Epilog.- A1. Appendix 1: Perimeter Fractal Dimension of Char Particles from a Downdraft Gasifier Through Image Analysis.- A1.1 Theoretical.- A1.1.1 Perimeter Fractal Dimension.- Al.1.2 Geometrical Bases for Measurement.- A1.2 Experimental.- A1.2.1 Sample Generation.- A1.2.2 Sample Preparation.- A1.2.3 Measurement of Feret Diameter.- A1.2.4 Evaluation of Perimeter Fractal Dimension.- A1.3 Results and Discussion.- A1.3.1 Comparison with Other Methods.- A1.3.2 Evaluation of Various Methods.- A2. Appendix 2: Surface Fractal Dimension of Rice Hull-Derived Charcoal from a Fluidized-Bed Reactor.- A2.1 Theoretical.- A2.2 Experimental.- A2.3 Results and Discussion.- A3. Appendix 3: Fractal Analysis of Pressure Fluctuations in Multiphase Flow Systems.- A3.1 Theoretical.- A3.1.1 Discrete-time Fractional Noise.- A3.1.2 Rescaled Range Analysis.- A3.2 Experimental.- A3.2.1 Facilities.- A3.2.2 Measurements and Computations.- A3.3 Results and Discussion.- Nomenclature.- Literature Cited.- Author Index.