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I'm in need of the proper technical term to
describe a certain phenomenon. Here's the
situation:
We're describing what happens when you load wood
chips into trailers. Solid wood has a "basic"
(inherent) density, but when you create chips from
this solid wood, you introduce lots of "void
space" (the empty space between the chips). As a
result, the density of the substance decreases
because you're mixing high-density wood with
low-density air.
We need a term that expresses the increase in air
space, and started with "expansion factor", since
the volume expands. However, a reviewer pointed
out that this makes it sound like the wood itself
expands, which isn't correct. Our best substitute
so far is "bulkiness factor", which explicitly
denotes the fact that the load of chips has
relatively high volume per unit of mass (the
definition of bulkiness). However, I'm sure I've
seen a technical term for this somewhere, and I'd
prefer to use the accepted technical term rather
than something ad hoc that just "works". Can
anyone provide the correct technical term, or is
bulkiness the best we can do for this situation?
--Geoff Hart @8^{)}
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Disclaimer: If I didn't commit it in print in one
of our reports, it don't represent FERIC's
opinion.
