What Does
Anisotropic Mean?
Anisotropic is the property of obtaining different values when observing or measuring something from different directions. The converse, isotropy, implies identical properties in all directions. Anisotropic is defined as the difference between the values when measured along various axes in the material’s mechanical and physical properties. Anisotropic properties of a material include its refractive index, tensile strength, absorbency, etc. Some examples of anisotropy are light emitted from a polarizer, or wood, which is more difficult to split against the wood grains.
Corrosionpedia Explains Anisotropic
Anisotropic properties can be applied to various industrial fields such as the chemical industry (chemicals), computer graphics, physics, real world imagery, geology and geophysics, acoustics in the field of medicine, engineering and material sciences, microfabrication, neuroscience, and atmospheric radiative transfer.
When a crystal is observed, its physical and mechanical properties mostly differ in orientation. This can be seen when looking at the model of the crystalline structure where atoms slip over one another or distort in relation to one another more in some directions than in others. When there is a variation in the properties of the material having different crystallographic orientations, the material is said to be in an anisotropic state.