In physics and engineering, mass flow rate is the mass of a substance which passes through a given surface per unit of time. Its unit is kilogram per second in SI units, and slug per second or pound per second in US customary units. The common symbol is (pronounced "m-dot"), although sometimes μ (Greek lowercase mu) is used.
Sometimes, mass flow rate is termed mass flux or mass current, see for example Fluid Mechanics, Schaum's et al. In this article, the (more intuitive) definition is used.
Read more about Mass Flow Rate: Definition, Alternative Equations, Usage, Analogous Quantities
Famous quotes containing the words mass, flow and/or rate:
“The great mass of people judge well of things, for they are in natural ignorance, which is mans true state.”
—Blaise Pascal (16231662)
“No care, no stop; so senseless of expense
That he will neither know how to maintain it
Nor cease his flow of riot, takes no account
How things go from him, nor resumes no care
Of what is to continue.”
—William Shakespeare (15641616)
“At this very moment,... the most frightful horrors are taking place in every corner of the world. People are being crushed, slashed, disembowelled, mangled; their dead bodies rot and their eyes decay with the rest. Screams of pain and fear go pulsing through the air at the rate of eleven hundred feet per second. After travelling for three seconds they are perfectly inaudible. These are distressing facts; but do we enjoy life any the less because of them? Most certainly we do not.”
—Aldous Huxley (18941963)