Fact-checked by Grok 2 weeks ago

Component

A component is a constituent part or element of a larger whole, such as a system, structure, or composition.^[1] The term is used across various disciplines, including engineering, science, mathematics, and linguistics.^[1] In engineering and computing contexts, a component is a fundamental, self-contained unit within a larger system, assembly, or program, characterized by its discrete structure and ability to perform specific functions independently or in combination with others.^[2] Components serve as building blocks that enable modularity, reusability, and specialization, ranging from physical hardware elements like circuit boards or batteries to software modules such as graphical user interface buttons or database interfaces.^[2]^[3] In systems engineering, a component is used as a generic term for system elements that are no longer considered internally complex, suitable for targeted design by specialist disciplines; it may encompass assemblies, software services, or functional sets with unique identifiers.^[2]^[4] Key attributes include encapsulation, interoperability, and testability as a group, ensuring reliability when integrated into broader constructions like smartphones or distributed applications. For instance, in object-oriented programming, components act as reusable objects that can be assembled to form larger applications. The concept of components has evolved with technological advancements, emphasizing standardization and validation to support efficient manufacturing and software development; in hardware, they include tangible parts like displays or processors, often comprising sub-components for hierarchical organization.^[3] This modularity facilitates innovation, maintenance, and scalability across disciplines, from electrical engineering to component-based software engineering.^[2]

In Engineering and Technology

Mechanical Components

Mechanical components serve as the fundamental building blocks of machines and mechanical systems, functioning as interchangeable parts that facilitate assembly, motion transmission, and load bearing. These elements, often referred to as machine elements, include gears for transmitting torque and rotational motion between shafts, bearings to minimize friction and support axial or radial loads in rotating assemblies, and fasteners like bolts and screws to securely join disparate parts. By enabling modular construction, mechanical components allow engineers to design complex systems from standardized, reusable units that can be easily assembled, maintained, or replaced.^[7]^[8]^[9] The historical development of mechanical components accelerated during the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when innovations in manufacturing shifted production from artisanal craftsmanship to mechanized processes. Key advancements included the widespread adoption of steam engines, which demanded precise, durable parts, and the introduction of interchangeable components to streamline assembly lines. In 1801, Eli Whitney demonstrated the feasibility of mass-producing muskets using interchangeable parts, a breakthrough that reduced assembly time and repair costs by allowing components to be swapped without custom fitting. This concept extended to broader mechanical engineering, laying the groundwork for modern manufacturing. Standardization efforts further evolved in the 20th century, with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) establishing specifications for fasteners; for instance, ISO 898-1 outlines mechanical properties such as tensile strength and proof load for carbon and alloy steel bolts, screws, and studs, ensuring global compatibility and reliability.^[10]^[11] Central to the design of mechanical components are principles of modularity, material selection, and failure mode analysis, which ensure functionality, longevity, and safety in engineering applications. Modularity emphasizes a one-to-one correspondence between functional requirements and physical elements, promoting ease of assembly, disassembly, and upgrades while reducing system complexity and enabling scalability in production. Material selection prioritizes properties like strength, toughness, and corrosion resistance; steel alloys, such as low-carbon variants, are commonly chosen for their high durability and affordability in load-bearing components, balancing weight with mechanical performance under stress. Failure modes, particularly fatigue from cyclic loading, are assessed using S-N curves, which graphically represent the relationship between applied stress amplitude (S) and the number of cycles to failure (N), aiding engineers in predicting lifespan and designing against crack initiation and propagation in components subjected to repeated stresses.^[12]^[13]^[14] In practical applications, mechanical components are integral to high-performance systems like automotive engines and aerospace propulsion. Within automotive engines, pistons—cylindrical elements that reciprocate within cylinders to convert combustion pressure into linear force—are connected via rods to crankshafts, which transform this motion into rotational output to drive the vehicle, typically enduring millions of cycles under high thermal and mechanical loads. In aerospace, turbine blades in jet engines exemplify advanced mechanical components, aerodynamically shaped to extract energy from high-velocity hot gases while withstanding extreme temperatures up to 1600°C and centrifugal forces, often constructed from nickel-based superalloys for enhanced creep resistance and thermal fatigue life. These examples highlight how mechanical components integrate modularity and robust design to achieve efficiency and reliability in demanding environments.^[15]^[16]^[17]^[18]

Electrical and Electronic Components

Electrical and electronic components are discrete devices that control, manipulate, or respond to electrical signals and power in circuits, forming the foundational building blocks of modern electronics. These components operate based on principles of electromagnetism and semiconductor physics, enabling functions such as signal amplification, rectification, energy storage, and resistance to current flow. Passive components, like resistors, capacitors, and inductors, do not require external power to function and primarily manage energy without amplification, while active components, such as diodes and transistors, can control or amplify signals using internal energy sources. Resistors are fundamental passive components that limit current flow and divide voltages in circuits, governed by Ohm's law, which states that the voltage drop V across a resistor is equal to the current I times the resistance R, expressed as V = IR. This relationship, derived from experimental measurements of metallic conductors, ensures predictable behavior in circuit design for applications like voltage regulation. Capacitors store electrical charge between two conductive plates separated by an insulator, with the stored charge Q related to the capacitance C and applied voltage V by the equation Q = CV, allowing them to function in timing circuits, filtering, and energy buffering. Inductors, another passive element, oppose changes in current by generating magnetic fields, where the induced voltage V across the coil is given by V = L \frac{di}{dt}, with L as inductance and \frac{di}{dt} as the rate of current change; this property is essential for applications in power supplies and signal processing.^[19]^[20] Diodes are two-terminal semiconductor devices that permit current to flow primarily in one direction, acting as rectifiers to convert alternating current (AC) to direct current (DC) by exploiting the p-n junction's asymmetric conductance. Transistors, three-terminal active components, serve as amplifiers or switches; bipolar junction transistors (BJTs) control large collector-emitter currents with a small base current, while field-effect transistors (FETs) use voltage to modulate channel conductivity, enabling precise signal control in amplification stages. These core types exemplify how components manipulate electrical properties at the device level, distinct from mechanical modularity by emphasizing signal integrity over physical motion.^[21]^[22] The evolution of these components traces key historical milestones, beginning with the vacuum tube's invention in 1904 by John Ambrose Fleming, a two-electrode diode that rectified AC signals using thermionic emission, paving the way for early radio and amplification technologies. This bulky, power-hungry device dominated electronics until the transistor's breakthrough in 1947 at Bell Laboratories, where John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley demonstrated the point-contact transistor, a solid-state semiconductor that amplified signals without vacuum, revolutionizing compact circuit design and leading to the decline of vacuum tubes by the 1960s.^[23]^[24] Manufacturing electrical and electronic components involves distinct processes for passive and active elements. Passive components like resistors and capacitors are assembled through techniques such as metal film deposition for resistors and multilayer ceramic sintering for capacitors, followed by lead framing, encapsulation in epoxy, and testing for tolerance; these steps ensure reliability in high-volume production using automated winding and coating machinery. For active components, semiconductor fabrication dominates, starting with silicon wafer preparation, where photolithography patterns circuits using ultraviolet light to expose photoresist, defining features down to nanometers; doping then introduces impurities like phosphorus or boron via ion implantation to create n-type or p-type regions, altering conductivity for diodes and transistors. These processes, iterated in cleanrooms, yield wafers diced into individual chips, highlighting the precision required for miniaturization.^[25]^[26]^[27] In modern applications, integrated circuits (ICs) combine multiple components—resistors, capacitors, diodes, and transistors—onto a single silicon chip, enabling complex functionality in compact forms; pioneered by Jack Kilby in 1958 at Texas Instruments, ICs now power consumer electronics like smartphones, where system-on-chip (SoC) designs integrate billions of transistors for processing, memory, and wireless communication, achieving performance metrics such as 5nm node densities exceeding 100 million transistors per square millimeter. This integration has scaled computing power exponentially, as seen in devices handling AI tasks and 5G connectivity.^[28]

Software Components

Software components are self-contained, reusable units of software that encapsulate specific functionality, allowing developers to build larger applications by assembling these units rather than writing code from scratch. In component-based software engineering (CBSE), these components adhere to well-defined interfaces, promoting modularity, interoperability, and maintainability across diverse systems. Examples include software libraries that provide reusable code modules, application programming interfaces (APIs) that enable communication between services, and microservices that operate as independent, deployable units in distributed architectures.^[29] A core principle of software components is their reliance on standardized interfaces to ensure seamless interoperability. The Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), developed by the Object Management Group (OMG), exemplifies this by providing a middleware standard for distributed objects, allowing components written in different languages to interact over networks through an Object Request Broker (ORB). This approach abstracts underlying complexities, enabling components to function as black boxes with predictable inputs and outputs. Similarly, composition of components occurs through frameworks that facilitate integration; JavaBeans, part of the Java platform, allows developers to create reusable components with properties, events, and methods that can be visually composed using builder tools. The .NET Framework from Microsoft supports component composition via its Common Language Runtime (CLR) and assemblies, which manage dependencies and enable cross-language interoperability in Windows-based applications.^[30] The development lifecycle of software components emphasizes structured practices to ensure reliability and reusability. Design patterns, such as the facade pattern, are commonly employed to provide a simplified interface to complex subsystems, hiding internal details while exposing only essential operations for easier integration. Testing focuses on unit tests, which isolate individual components to verify their behavior against expected outcomes, often using frameworks like JUnit for Java or NUnit for .NET, thereby catching defects early in the cycle. Deployment has evolved to leverage containerization technologies like Docker, which packages components with their dependencies into lightweight, portable images that can be consistently run across environments, from development to production clouds.^[31]^[32]^[33] The concept of software components traces its roots to the 1960s, when modular programming emerged with languages like Fortran, enabling developers to organize code into separable subroutines and procedures for better manageability in early computing systems. This procedural approach laid the groundwork for CBSE, which gained prominence in the 1990s through standards like CORBA and frameworks such as JavaBeans. By the 2000s, the paradigm shifted toward service-oriented architectures, and in the 2010s, cloud-native components integrated into DevOps pipelines, where microservices and containers support continuous integration, delivery, and scaling in dynamic environments.^[34]

In Science and Mathematics

Mathematical Components

In mathematics, components refer to the decomposition of abstract objects such as vectors, tensors, and functions into simpler, scalar elements that facilitate analysis, computation, and transformation under various operations. This breakdown allows for the representation of complex structures in coordinate systems or bases, enabling the application of algebraic and analytic techniques. Such decompositions are foundational in linear algebra, multilinear algebra, and functional analysis, providing tools to solve problems ranging from geometric projections to spectral representations.^[2]^[35] Vector components describe the projection of a vector onto the axes of a chosen coordinate system, typically Cartesian coordinates, where a three-dimensional vector \vec{v} is expressed as \vec{v} = v_x \hat{i} + v_y \hat{j} + v_z \hat{k}, with v_x, v_y, v_z as the scalar components along the unit basis vectors \hat{i}, \hat{j}, \hat{k}. The component v_x, for instance, is derived from the dot product of \vec{v} with the unit vector \hat{i}, yielding v_x = \vec{v} \cdot \hat{i}, which geometrically represents the orthogonal projection of \vec{v} onto the x-axis.^[36] This derivation extends to higher dimensions and non-orthogonal bases, but in Cartesian systems, it ensures invariance of the vector's magnitude under the Euclidean norm \|\vec{v}\| = \sqrt{v_x^2 + v_y^2 + v_z^2}. Tensor components generalize vector components to multilinear objects of higher rank, where a tensor of rank r possesses n^r components in an n-dimensional space, indexed by upper and lower subscripts to denote contravariant and covariant nature, respectively. For example, a second-rank tensor like the stress tensor \sigma_{ij} has nine components in three dimensions, with i, j = 1, 2, 3 labeling directions, where diagonal elements \sigma_{ii} (no sum) represent normal stresses and off-diagonal \sigma_{ij} ( i \neq j ) shear stresses. Under coordinate transformations, such as rotations, tensor components obey specific laws: for a contravariant second-rank tensor T^{ij}, the transformed components are T'^{kl} = \frac{\partial x'^k}{\partial x^m} \frac{\partial x'^l}{\partial x^n} T^{mn}, ensuring the tensor's intrinsic properties remain unchanged. Covariant tensors follow analogous rules with inverse Jacobians, \Lambda^k_m = \frac{\partial x'^k}{\partial x^m}, preserving multilinearity in contractions and outer products.^[37] Function decomposition into components often employs series expansions to break down periodic or square-integrable functions into sums of basis functions, with Fourier series serving as a primary method for signal analysis. A periodic function f(x) with period $2\pi decomposes as f(x) = \frac{a_0}{2} + \sum_{n=1}^\infty \left( a_n \cos(nx) + b_n \sin(nx) \right), where coefficients a_n = \frac{1}{\pi} \int_{-\pi}^\pi f(x) \cos(nx) \, dx and b_n = \frac{1}{\pi} \int_{-\pi}^\pi f(x) \sin(nx) \, dx are the Fourier components representing amplitude and phase at frequency n. These components isolate oscillatory elements, enabling frequency-domain analysis for filtering noise or identifying dominant harmonics in signals, as the series converges to f(x) under suitable conditions like Dirichlet's theorem.^[38] Applications of component decompositions include solving systems of linear equations through component-wise manipulations, exemplified by Gaussian elimination, which transforms an augmented matrix [A|b] into row-echelon form via row operations to isolate variables. For a system Ax = b with A an m \times n matrix, elimination proceeds by scaling pivot entries to 1 and subtracting multiples of rows to zero out entries below pivots, yielding back-substitution for components of x. This method, with complexity O(n^3), underpins numerical linear algebra for problems in optimization and physics, where vector or tensor equations reduce to scalar component systems.

Physical and Chemical Components

In physical systems, atoms serve as the fundamental building blocks, each composed of a nucleus containing protons and neutrons, surrounded by orbiting electrons. Protons carry a positive charge equal in magnitude but opposite to that of electrons, which are negatively charged and determine an atom's chemical properties, while neutrons are neutral particles that contribute to the atom's mass and stability.^[39]^[40] At the molecular scale, mixtures of elements form alloys such as steel, which combines iron as the primary component with a small percentage of carbon to enhance strength and durability. These mixtures retain the individual properties of their constituents without forming entirely new chemical bonds, allowing for tailored material behaviors in applications like construction and manufacturing.^[41]^[42] In physics, the lumped element model approximates continuous distributed systems—such as transmission lines or fields—by treating them as discrete components like resistors, capacitors, and inductors, simplifying analysis for low-frequency behaviors where wave propagation effects are negligible. This approach enables the use of ordinary differential equations to model system dynamics, bridging complex physical phenomena with practical circuit simulations.^[43]^[44] Quantum mechanics introduces quasiparticles as effective components in materials science, representing collective excitations rather than individual particles; for instance, phonons model quantized lattice vibrations that mediate heat transfer in solids, while excitons describe bound electron-hole pairs crucial for optoelectronic properties in semiconductors. These entities emerge from solutions to the time-independent Schrödinger equation, H \psi = E \psi, where H is the Hamiltonian operator, \psi the wave function, and E the energy eigenvalue, capturing the quantum states underlying material interactions.^[45]^[46] Modern advancements extend these concepts to nanomaterials, such as graphene—a single layer of carbon atoms in a hexagonal lattice—integrated as a conductive component in lithium-ion battery electrodes to improve energy density and charge rates by facilitating faster electron transport and mitigating volume expansion issues. In climate modeling, atmospheric components like carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄) are key greenhouse gases simulated as radiative forcings that trap heat, with CH₄ exerting a potent short-term warming effect due to its high global warming potential over a 20-year horizon.^[47]^[48]

In Linguistics and Culture

Chinese Character Components

Chinese character components, commonly referred to as radicals or bùshǒu (部首), serve as the fundamental building blocks for constructing and indexing over 47,000 characters in the Kangxi Dictionary, a seminal 18th-century reference that standardized 214 radicals for dictionary organization.^[49] These radicals, often the semantic or phonetic elements within a character, enable systematic lookup by stroke count and radical identification in traditional lexicography, with most modern dictionaries retaining this Kangxi system despite variations in simplified forms.^[50] The historical evolution of these components traces back to oracle bone script, the earliest attested form of Chinese writing from the late Shang Dynasty around 1200 BCE, where pictographic and ideographic elements began as simple incisions on bones and shells for divination purposes.^[51] Over millennia, these evolved through bronze inscriptions (c. 1046–256 BCE), seal script during the Qin unification (221–206 BCE), and clerical script in the Han Dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), culminating in the regular script by the Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE) that forms the basis of modern typography.^[52] A major shift occurred with the 1956 Chinese Character Simplification Scheme, promulgated by the People's Republic of China's Ministry of Education, which reduced strokes in many radicals and characters to promote literacy, affecting over 2,000 entries while preserving core structural principles.^[53] Most Chinese characters (approximately 81%) are phonetic-semantic compounds, combining a semantic radical indicating meaning with a phonetic component suggesting pronunciation, as seen in the character 明 (míng, "bright"), formed by 日 (rì, "sun") and 月 (yuè, "moon") to evoke illumination through association.^[54] This construction rule, dominant since the Bronze Age, allows characters to expand the lexicon efficiently without alphabetic dependency, though radicals like 水 (water) often appear on the left to cue categories such as liquids or bodies of water in compounds.^[55] Culturally, radicals play a pivotal role in etymology by revealing historical meanings and derivations, aiding scholars in reconstructing ancient semantics, such as how 木 (mù, "tree") extends to denote wood-related concepts.^[56] In education, they facilitate character acquisition for learners by providing mnemonic cues for meaning and structure, with studies showing improved recognition and recall when radicals are emphasized in instruction.^[56] For digital representation, the Unicode Standard encodes the 214 Kangxi radicals in the dedicated block from U+2F00 to U+2FDF, ensuring consistent rendering and searchability in global computing environments.^[57]

Grammatical Components

In linguistics, grammatical components refer to the basic units of syntax, such as words or phrases, that combine to form larger syntactic structures within sentences.^[58] These units include noun phrases (NPs), which function like nouns and can consist of determiners, adjectives, and nouns (e.g., "the quick brown fox" as a subject NP), and verb phrases (VPs), which center on verbs and may include objects or complements (e.g., "runs through the forest" as a predicate).^[58] Such components enable the hierarchical organization of sentences, allowing languages to express complex relationships efficiently. The historical development of grammatical components traces back to the mid-20th century with Noam Chomsky's introduction of generative grammar in Syntactic Structures (1957), which posited that sentences are generated through hierarchical rules transforming deep structures into surface forms. This framework emphasized phrase-structure rules to build components like NPs and VPs, shifting focus from descriptive to explanatory adequacy in syntax. By the 1990s, Chomsky's Minimalist Program refined this approach, reducing syntax to core operations like Merge, which combines lexical items into hierarchical sets, minimizing extraneous components to universal principles. Theoretical frameworks like dependency grammar, pioneered by Lucien Tesnière in Éléments de syntaxe structurale (1959), view grammatical components as words linked by directed dependencies, with the verb as the central governor organizing the sentence without intermediate phrasal nodes. Building on this, catena analysis extends dependency grammar by defining components as contiguous strings of words ("catenae") in the dependency tree, capturing units like idioms or elided material that are continuous under dominance but not necessarily constituents. Unlike phrase-structure models, catenae accommodate non-hierarchical continuity, providing a flexible unit for analyzing multi-word expressions across languages. Examples of grammatical components vary by language typology. In English, a subject-verb-object (SVO) structure, the sentence "The cat chased the mouse" decomposes into NP ("The cat") + VP ("chased the mouse"), where the VP further includes a verb and another NP.^[58] In contrast, Turkish, an agglutinative language, integrates components through suffixation, as in "evlerimizde" ("in our houses"), formed by the root "ev" (house) + plural "-ler" + possessive "-imiz" (our) + locative "-de," creating a single-word NP that conveys phrasal relations compactly.^[59] Such variations highlight how components adapt to linear and morphological demands, with Turkish favoring head-final dependencies in subject-object-verb (SOV) order.^[59]

Other Contexts

Culinary Components

In culinary arts, components are the foundational ingredients and elements that form the basis of recipes and food preparation, emphasizing their roles in achieving balance, texture, and flavor. Basic ingredients include macronutrients such as proteins, which provide structure and satiety in foods like meats and legumes; carbohydrates, serving as primary energy sources in grains and vegetables; and fats, contributing to richness and mouthfeel in oils and dairy.^[60] Flavor components, meanwhile, encompass the core tastes that enhance palatability: acids like vinegar or citrus for brightness and balance; salts such as sodium chloride to amplify other flavors; and umami, the savory fifth taste derived from glutamates in ingredients like mushrooms, cheese, and soy sauce.^[61] These elements interact to create harmonious dishes, where precise proportions prevent overpowering any single aspect.^[62] Molecular gastronomy provides scientific insights into how these components transform during cooking, revealing principles that guide flavor development and texture. A key example is the Maillard reaction, a non-enzymatic browning process where amino acids from proteins react with reducing sugars from carbohydrates at high temperatures (typically above 140°C), producing hundreds of volatile compounds responsible for the nutty, roasted flavors in seared meats, baked bread, and coffee.^[63] This reaction not only enhances sensory appeal but also influences nutritional profiles by altering protein digestibility and generating antioxidants, though excessive heat can form potentially harmful compounds like acrylamide.^[64] Chefs leverage such principles to manipulate components innovatively, ensuring balanced outcomes in everything from simple sautés to complex emulsions. Historically, culinary components have evolved from ancient preservation techniques to contemporary innovations, reflecting cultural adaptations in food composition. In ancient Roman cuisine, garum—a fermented fish sauce made from small fish like anchovies layered with salt and left to ferment in the sun for months—served as a versatile umami-rich component, added to sauces, stews, and even desserts for depth and preservation.^[65] This condiment, produced industrially across the empire, highlighted early mastery of fermentation to concentrate flavors from basic proteins and salts. In modern fusion cuisine, molecular gastronomy extends these ideas through techniques like foaming, where liquids such as fruit purees or broths are aerated using emulsifiers like soy lecithin and a whipping siphon to create light, edible foams that add textural contrast without heaviness.^[66] Examples include olive oil foam atop gazpacho or chocolate espuma in desserts, blending traditional ingredients with scientific precision for novel sensory experiences. Nutritionally, culinary components must align with balanced dietary guidelines to support health, focusing on macronutrient breakdowns that prevent deficiencies and chronic diseases. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that total fats constitute no more than 30% of total energy intake for adults, with saturated fats limited to under 10% and trans-fats to less than 1%, prioritizing unsaturated fats from sources like nuts and avocados for cardiovascular benefits.^[67] Carbohydrates should comprise 40-70% of calories, mainly from whole grains, fruits, and vegetables to provide fiber and sustained energy, while free sugars are capped at under 10% (ideally 5%) to reduce obesity risk.^[68] Proteins, though without a strict percentage, are advised from diverse lean sources to meet daily needs of about 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight, ensuring muscle repair and overall vitality in meal compositions.^[67] These guidelines underscore the importance of proportional components in recipes to foster long-term well-being.

Infrastructure Components

In infrastructure, components refer to standardized, interchangeable elements that form the building blocks of large-scale built environments, such as transportation networks and urban systems, enabling efficient assembly, maintenance, and scalability. A prominent example in transportation is the Component Light Rail Station in San Jose, California, operated by the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), which serves as a key node on the Blue and Green light rail lines, facilitating commuter access in the North San Jose area near technology hubs and the airport.^[69] This station exemplifies how modular station components, including prefabricated platforms and signaling systems, integrate into broader rail networks to support urban mobility.^[70] In urban infrastructure, modular components like precast concrete segments are widely used in bridge construction to accelerate erection while ensuring structural integrity. These segments, manufactured off-site under controlled conditions, are transported and assembled on-site, reducing on-site labor and weather-related delays compared to traditional cast-in-place methods. For instance, precast segments form the superstructure of many modern bridges, allowing for spans up to 100 meters with enhanced durability against corrosion. Complementing these are smart city sensors, embedded as modular IoT devices in streetlights, traffic signals, and utility poles, which monitor real-time data on traffic flow, air quality, and energy usage to optimize urban operations. As of 2025, sustainability efforts have emphasized the integration of EV charging components into existing infrastructure, such as curbside stations and parking structures, to support the global expansion of electric mobility. Public EV chargers have more than doubled since 2022, reaching over 5 million units worldwide, with urban deployments focusing on grid-integrated fast chargers to minimize energy strain.^[71] Additionally, post-climate event designs incorporate resilient components, like elevated foundations and flood-resistant materials, informed by events such as the 2023-2024 wildfires and hurricanes, to withstand extreme weather and reduce recovery costs. These adaptations, including modular barriers and permeable pavements, can generate up to $10 in avoided losses per $1 invested over a decade.^[72] A key case study in modular construction is its application to housing, where prefabricated components—such as wall panels, floor systems, and structural frames—are factory-built and assembled on-site, reducing overall build time by up to 50% while cutting costs by 20%.^[73] This approach, demonstrated in projects like those by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, enables parallel site preparation and fabrication, minimizing disruptions and improving quality control through standardized production.^[74] Such methods draw briefly on mechanical modularity principles to enhance assembly efficiency in residential infrastructure.^[75]

References

[1]
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/component
[2]
Component (glossary)
### Definition and Key Explanations of 'Component'
[3]
What Is a Component? | Definition from TechTarget
Jul 16, 2024 · What are components? In computer science and engineering disciplines, a component is an identifiable part of a larger program or construction.
[4]
https://standards.ieee.org/ieee/829/2008/
[5]
https://www.%5Btechtarget
[6]
https://download.%5Boracle
[7]
[PDF] 1 Introduction to Machine Design
A machine is an arrangement of parts having the purpose of doing work. Parts may also be referred to as machine elements or machine components. Machine ...
[8]
Chapter 2. Mechanisms and Simple Machines
A machine is a combination of rigid or resistant bodies, formed and connected so that they move with definite relative motions and transmit force.
[9]
[PDF] Fundamentals Of Mechanical Component Design
Fundamentals of Mechanical Component Design Mechanical component design is a critical aspect of engineering that involves the creation of parts and assemblies ...
[10]
The History of Interchangeable Parts in the Industrial Revolution
In 1801, a man by the name of Eli Whitney pioneered a new manufacturing method. He had successfully demonstrated the concept of interchangeable parts.Missing: mechanical components
[11]
ISO 898-1:2013 - Mechanical properties of fasteners made of carbon ...
In stock 2–5 day deliveryISO 898-1:2013 specifies mechanical and physical properties of bolts, screws and studs made of carbon steel and alloy steel when tested at an ambient ...
[12]
[PDF] Modularity - MIT Strategic Engineering
Modular architecture, defined as having a one-to-one mapping from functional elements to the physical components of the product, or as “uncoupled design”, has ...
[13]
[PDF] Materials Selection In Mechanical Design
Metals and Alloys Metals dominate mechanical design due to their strength and versatility. - Steel: Known for its strength, toughness, and affordability.
[14]
S-N Fatigue Properties - Nondestructive Evaluation Physics : Materials
This test results in data presented as a plot of stress (S) against the number of cycles to failure (N), which is known as an S-N curve. A log scale is almost ...Missing: analysis | Show results with:analysis
[15]
How the crankshaft works - All the details - How a Car Works
The crankshaft converts linear piston motion into rotation, pushing the piston back up. It has main and connecting rod journals, and the crank radius ...<|separator|>
[16]
4 Engine Parts: Pistons, Cylinders, Rods and a Crankshaft - LiveAbout
May 19, 2018 · The four basic engine parts are the cylinder, piston, connecting rod, and crankshaft.
[17]
Turbine Vanes and Blades in Aerospace | Oerlikon Metco
They are designed to provide a smooth path for the hot gases to flow through the engine, while minimizing energy losses due to turbulence or flow separation.
[18]
Turbine Blades: Guide, Applications, And Machining - KeSu Group
Jul 16, 2025 · Blades must withstand temperatures exceeding 1600°C (2900°F) in aerospace applications and endure mechanical loads from centrifugal forces and ...
[19]
Ohm (1787) - Energy Kids - EIA
The equation I = V/R is known as "Ohm's Law". It states that the amount of steady current through a material is directly proportional to the voltage across ...
[20]
Inductor Voltage and Current Relationship | Electronics Textbook
The mathematical relationship is given by v = L (di/dt). Inductors do not have a stable “resistance” as conductors do. However, there is a definite mathematical ...
[21]
Diodes Explained - The Engineering Mindset
Jan 19, 2020 · A diode allows current to flow in only one direction, acting as a conductor or insulator depending on the direction of current flow.
[22]
How Transistors Work (BJT and MOSFET) - The Simple Explanation
Mar 17, 2021 · Transistors act as electronic switches, turning current ON/OFF. BJT current flows from collector to emitter, while MOSFET voltage from gate to ...
[23]
Nov. 16, 1904: Vacuum Tube Heralds Birth of Modern Electronics
Nov 16, 2009 · 1904: British engineer John Ambrose Fleming invents and patents the thermionic valve, the first vacuum tube. With this advance, the age of ...
[24]
1947: Invention of the Point-Contact Transistor | The Silicon Engine
Named the "transistor" by electrical engineer John Pierce, Bell Labs publicly announced the revolutionary solid-state device at a press conference in New York ...Missing: source | Show results with:source
[25]
Capacitance and Charge on a Capacitors Plates - Electronics Tutorials
Capacitance is a capacitor's ability to store charge. Charge is calculated as Q = C x V, where C is capacitance and V is voltage.
[26]
Semiconductor Lithography (Photolithography) - The Basic Process
The various processes used to make an IC fall into three categories: film deposition, patterning, and semiconductor doping.
[27]
https://www.renesas.com/en/blogs/semiconductor-device-manufacturing-process-challenges-and-opportunities
[28]
Integrated Circuits: Revolutionizing Electronics with Miniaturization
Jan 9, 2020 · In 1958, Jack Kilby, an engineer at Texas Instruments, developed the first integrated circuit while working on a solution to reduce the size and ...
[29]
Component Primer - Communications of the ACM
Oct 1, 2000 · For example, D'Souza and Wills define component as “A coherent package of software artifacts that can be independently developed and delivered ...Object Models And Component... · Modeling Components · Component Granularity
[30]
Overview of .NET Framework - Microsoft Learn
Mar 29, 2023 · .NET Framework is a technology that supports building and running Windows apps and web services. .NET Framework is designed to fulfill the following objectives:
[31]
Facade - Refactoring.Guru
Facade is a structural design pattern that provides a simplified interface to a library, a framework, or any other complex set of classes.
[32]
What is Unit Testing? | IBM
The five steps of unit testing · 1. Identify the unit · 2. Select an approach · 3. Establish the test environment · 4. Create and use test cases · 5. Debug and ...What is unit testing? · Unit testing versus other...
[33]
What is a Container? - Docker
A Docker container image is a lightweight, standalone, executable package of software that includes everything needed to run an application: code, runtime, ...
[34]
'Silver Bullet' Milestones in Software History
Aug 1, 2005 · The earliest creative milestone in software history: the development of business applications software and an application-specific computer called LEO.Missing: components | Show results with:components
[35]
The formula for the dot product in terms of vector components
As a first step, we look at the dot product between standard unit vectors, i.e., the vectors i, j, and k of length one and parallel to the coordinate axes.
[36]
https://mathinsight.org/dot_product_formula_components
[37]
[PDF] 2.161 Signal Processing: Continuous and Discrete
The Fourier series representation of periodic functions may be extended through the Fourier transform to represent non-repeating aperiodic (or transient) ...
[38]
Structure of the Atom
The number of protons in the nucleus of the atom is equal to the atomic number (Z). The number of electrons in a neutral atom is equal to the number of protons.
[39]
1.9: The Properties of Protons, Neutrons, and Electrons
Electrons are one of three main types of particles that make up atoms. Unlike protons and neutrons, which consist of smaller, simpler particles, electrons are ...Missing: components | Show results with:components
[40]
Mixtures (article) - Khan Academy
Alloys are mixtures, not compounds. They are formed by physically combining two or more elements, typically metals, without forming new chemical bonds. This ...
[41]
The Elemental Compositions of Metal Alloys - Compound Interest
Jul 7, 2015 · Alloys are a mixture of elements, where at least one of the elements is a metal. There are over 80 metals in the periodic table of elements.
[42]
Lumped vs. Distributed Systems
A lumped system is one in which the dependent variables of interest are a function of time alone. · A distributed system is one in which all dependent variables ...
[43]
Lumped Element Model | Ultimate Electronics Book
The lumped element model is a set of assumptions that let us treat various systems as being a single element that behaves like a single entity.
[44]
Exciton - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics
An exciton is a hydrogen-like bound state of an electron and a hole and can be realized via photoexcitation of semiconductor quantum wells (QWs). QW excitons ...
[45]
Excitons and excitonic materials | MRS Bulletin
Sep 1, 2024 · As a result, the original Schrödinger equation turns into two decoupled equations. The first one looks like a free particle Schrödinger equation ...
[46]
The role of graphene in rechargeable lithium batteries: Synthesis ...
Aug 26, 2022 · Recently, graphene-based nanomaterials have been developed for different types of batteries, such as LIBs, LSBs, and LOBs.
[47]
The Causes of Climate Change - NASA Science
Oct 23, 2024 · Five key greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, chlorofluorocarbons, and water vapor. While the Sun has played a role in ...
[48]
[PDF] An Introduction to Mandarin Chinese Grammar for ESL Professionals
Jul 23, 2015 · • Radicals. • There are 214 radicals, or keys, used to organize characters in a traditional Chinese dictionary, such as the famous Kangxi.<|separator|>
[49]
Radicals & Simplification - Chinese Research and Bibliographic ...
Dec 13, 2024 · All Chinese characters are made up of one or more radicals. In the traditional Kangxi (康熙) radical system, there are 214 radicals. Most ...Missing: definition | Show results with:definition
[50]
Oracle Bone Script (甲骨文) - Omniglot
Mar 15, 2023 · The Oracle Bone Script was used between about about 1300 and 1100 BC according to some sources, and between 1500 and 1000 BC according to others ...Missing: BCE | Show results with:BCE
[51]
From oracle bone inscriptions to regular script | PLOS One
Aug 19, 2022 · In general, we can divide the evolution of Chinese characters into four periods, which are from Oracle Bone Inscriptions to Bronze Inscriptions ...
[52]
Simplification Is Not Dominant in the Evolution of Chinese Characters
Dec 2, 2022 · The most recent phase in the history of written Chinese concerns the simplified script reform of 1956, when China's Ministry of Education ...
[53]
Evaluating Transformer Models and Human Behaviors on Chinese ...
Jul 12, 2023 · The majority (81%) of Chinese characters are phono-semantic compounds (Li and Kang, 1993), which consist of a phonetic radical that contains ...
[54]
Acquisition of Chinese characters: the effects of character properties ...
Over 80% of the modern Chinese characters are compound characters composed of a semantic ... phonetic properties of characters on character acquisition ...
[55]
[PDF] understanding the role of radicals in chinese character - OAKTrust
Radicals have shown facilitation effects on naming and understanding the meaning of characters in CFL learners (Chen et al., 2013; Taft &. Chung, 1999; Shen & ...
[56]
[PDF] Kangxi Radicals - The Unicode Standard, Version 17.0
The Unicode Consortium specifically grants ISO a license to produce such code charts with their associated character names list to show the repertoire of ...
[57]
3.4 Syntax - Psychology of Language
Phrase-structure grammar has word (terminal elements) and other constituent parts (non-terminal elements). This means that words usually form the lowest ...
[58]
Adding word endings (agglutination) - Turkish Textbook
Turkish uses suffixes to convey grammatical meaning, often stacking them. For example, 'evlerimizde' means 'in our houses' using suffixes. 'Odana git' means ' ...
[59]
Components of Food - UMass Memorial Health
Fatty acids are the basic chemicals in fat. They may be saturated, polyunsaturated, monounsaturated, or trans fats.Facts About Calories · Types Of Fats · Facts About Fiber
[60]
The Science of Flavor: Understanding Taste Profiles in Cooking
Umami, often described as savory or meaty, is the most recently recognized basic taste. It's caused by glutamate, inosinate, and guanylate. In cooking, umami:.
[61]
Chef Calls 'Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat' The 4 Elements Of Good Cooking
May 25, 2017 · Chef Samin Nosrat talks with NPR's Rachel Martin about what she calls the four essentials of good cooking. Nosrat's new cookbook is called Salt, Fat, Acid, ...Missing: proteins carbohydrates umami
[62]
An Introduction to the Maillard Reaction: The Science of Browning ...
Practically speaking, the Maillard reaction makes food more enticing to us humans, encouraging us to dig into a steak, drink a coffee, or chug a beer.* Unlike ...
[63]
The Maillard Reaction - Modernist Cuisine
Mar 20, 2013 · The Maillard reaction creates brown pigments in cooked meat in a very specific way: by rearranging amino acids and certain simple sugars.
[64]
Culinary Detectives Try to Recover the Formula for a Deliciously ...
The fishy sauce was beloved by the ancient Greeks and Romans, but until recently, classicists believed it to be as extinct as the flightless birds of Mauritius.
[65]
How to Make Modernist Foams - Amazing Food Made Easy
Examples of commonly used stabilizers are agar agar and lecithin. Depending on what is being made, fats and egg whites may also be used. Air is then introduced ...
[66]
Healthy diet - World Health Organization (WHO)
Apr 29, 2020 · WHO fact sheet on healthy diet with key facts and information on essential dietary elements, practical advice, salt, sodium and potassium, ...WHO updates guidelines on... · WHO launches new guideline... · Sodium reduction
[67]
WHO releases updated guidelines on defining healthy diets
Jul 17, 2023 · The World Health Organization (WHO) has released updated guidelines for defining healthy diets, with particular attention to carbohydrates, total fat, and ...
[68]
Component Station | VTA
light-rail. Blue Line · Cottle Station Escalator Out of Service. Start Date: 10/31 ... VTA Headquarters. 3331 North First Street, San Jose, CA, 95134. Monday ...
[69]
VTA Light Rail Stations
San Jose, CA. Civic Center Light Rail Station, 805 N. 1st St. San Jose, CA. Component Light Rail Station, 2544 N. 1st St. San Jose, CA. Convention Center Light ...
[70]
Electric vehicle charging – Global EV Outlook 2025 – Analysis - IEA
Public chargers have doubled since 2022 to reach more than 5 million. Access to public charging points is key to supporting mass adoption.
[71]
Climate Resilient Infrastructure
Ensuring the climate change resilience of infrastructure will help to protect lives and livelihoods, reduce direct losses as a result of extreme weather events ...
[72]
Making modular construction fit - McKinsey
May 10, 2023 · McKinsey analysis suggests that modular techniques could allow home builders to accelerate end-to-end project timelines by 20 to 50 percent while reducing ...
[73]
Modular Construction: A Comprehensive Review - MDPI
Modular construction is an advanced building process in which the components are prefabricated ... Reduces construction time by approximately 50%, 193, 1. B2 ...
[74]
What is Modular Construction
Construction of modular buildings occurs simultaneously with site work, allowing projects to be completed in half the time of traditional construction. Reduced ...