Transport phenomena is a research area concerned with the fundamental mechanisms and coupled behavior of momentum, heat, and mass transfer in physical, chemical, and biological systems. It formulates and analyzes balance equations derived from conservation laws, typically expressed as partial differential equations such as the Navier–Stokes, energy, and species transport equations. The field emphasizes constitutive relations (e.g., Newton’s law of viscosity, Fourier’s law of heat conduction, Fick’s law of diffusion) and dimensionless analysis to characterize regimes and scaling. Transport phenomena underpins modeling, simulation, and optimization across chemical engineering, materials processing, microfluidics, energy systems, and physiological flows.
When a material heats up, its electrical resistance often rises. The harder question is what, exactly, is getting in the way. The electrons carrying the current may be scattered by vibrations of the material's atomic lattice, ...
Condensed Matter
Sep 16, 2026
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27
Thermoelectric materials can directly convert heat into electricity, making them promising for recovering waste heat from factories, vehicles and other sources. They can also transport heat when an electric current is applied ...
General Physics
Sep 12, 2026
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41
Researchers at the National Graphene Institute have shown that naturally occurring channels within a common clay mineral can respond to pressure, voltage and pH, offering possibilities for controlling the movement of ions ...
Nanophysics
Sep 9, 2026
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13
Material properties such as sound insulation, resistance to extreme heat and thermal expansion originate from how the zillions of microscopic building blocks (nuclei and electrons) interact at equilibrium and respond to perturbations. ...
Condensed Matter
Sep 9, 2026
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19
A joint research team from NIMS and the University of Tokyo has developed a new composite in which three-dimensional nano-interfaces are distributed throughout the material by coating the surfaces of magnetic-insulator powders ...
Condensed Matter
Sep 4, 2026
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16
A team of Korean researchers has become the first in the world to identify the origin of the "beating" signal that has long been a major obstacle to interpreting quantum signals in topological insulator (TI) nanowires. Their ...
Nanophysics
Sep 3, 2026
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20
Heat, it turns out, has a memory. A cooling cup of coffee may not seem particularly thoughtful. At the scale of a kitchen, heat appears to follow a straightforward rule: it moves from warmer places to cooler ones. Leave the ...
General Physics
Sep 3, 2026
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47
Metal-insulator transitions (MITs), in which a material changes from a metallic state with low resistivity to an insulating state because of a change in an external parameter, such as temperature, pressure or an electric ...
Condensed Matter
Aug 31, 2026
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7
A team of scientists from Caltech and Yale University has shown for the first time how to accurately quantify an important quantum phenomenon in metals, called the Kondo effect, for specific real materials. Unlike previous ...
Condensed Matter
Aug 25, 2026
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60
A decades-long collaboration between two scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory is reshaping how we understand learning.
Cell & Microbiology
Aug 19, 2026
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15
