Introduction to Structure Theory
Ferenc Á. Mohos · 2016
Introduction to structure theoryThe system theory of chemical engineering was developed by Seitz and Blickle (1974), Blickle and Seitz (1974), Seitz et al. (1975Seitz et al. ( , 1976) ) and Blickle (1978), and it was adapted to food engineering by Mohos (1978aMohos ( ,b,c,d, 1982)). A5.1 The principles of the structure theory of blickle and seitz A5.1.1 Attributes and their relations: structureStructure theory deals with the attributes of a system and their relations.The attributes have qualitative and quantitative characteristics.The structure theory has been used by Blickle, Seitz et al. originally for chemical engineering.Mohos (1982) adapted it for food engineering; however, the structure theory as one of the system theories can be applied in many fields of science and engineering.In chemical engineering the attributes may be reasonably distinguished as follows:-S: Substantial attributes (e.g.atoms, ions and other chemical properties or physical properties, such as density and energy) -M: Attributes of machinery (e.g.type of tank, tube, distiller, etc.) -C: Attributes of the technological changes (e.g.dissociation, double decomposition, substitution, distillation, etc.).An attribute can be regarded as a set of attribute elements, and the structure of this attribute is modelled by an internal product of its elements, that is, the relations between these elements.The relations between different attributes are modelled by an external product of attributes.This method of system theory entirely follows the algebra of relations.The structure theory defines the chemical changes as a mapping h (H ∋ h i where i = 1, 2, … , n, and H is the set of changes), the kernel of which is the structure of the input materials and the picture is the structure of the output materials.Between the changes two algebraic operations can be defined: series coupling (⊕) and parallel coupling (⊗).It can be presented (Blickle and Seitz, 1975) that the set H and these two algebraic operations establish an algebraic structure (H; ⊕; ⊗) which is a non-distributive lattice (see Birkhoff, 1948).By means of this algebraic structure, the chemical changes (operations) can be modelled. Confectionery and Chocolate Engineering: Principles and Applications, Second Edition. Ferenc Á. Mohos.