The aim of this book is to present a rigorous phenomenological and
mathematical formulation of sedimentation processes and to show how this
theory can be applied to the design and control of continuous
thickeners. The book is directed to stu- dents and researchers in
applied mathematics and engineering sciences, especially in
metallurgical, chemical, mechanical and civil engineering, and to
practicing en- gineers in the process industries. Such a vast and
diverse audience should read this book differently. For this reason we
have organized the chapters in such a way that the book can be read in
two ways. Engineers and engineering students will find a rigorous
formulation of the mathematical model of sedimentation and the exact and
approximate solutions for the most important problems encountered in the
laboratory and in industry in Chapters 1 to 3, 7 and 8, and 10 to 12,
which form a self-contained subject. They can skip Chapters 4 to 6 and
9, which are most important to applied mathematicians, without losing
the main features of sedimentation processes. On the other hand, applied
mathematicians will find special interest in Chapters 4 to 6 and 9 which
show some known but many recent results in the field of conservation
laws of quasilinear hyperbolic and degenerate parabolic equations of
great interest today. These two approaches to the theory keep their own
styles: the mathematical approach with theorems and proofs, and the
phenomenological approach with its deductive technique.
