Sankey diagram

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Example of a Sankey diagram
Example of a Sankey diagram

Sankey diagrams are a specific type of flow diagram, in which the width of the arrows is shown proportionally to the flow quantity. They are typically used to visualize energy or material transfers between processes.

Contents

[edit] Application

Sankey diagrams are used in chemical engineering or environmental engineering to show flow quantities in process systems. They are also commonly used to visualize the energy accounts or material flow accounts on a regional or national level. Sankey diagrams put a visual emphasis on the major transfers or flows within a system. They are helpful in locating dominant contributions to an overall flow and as such are popular during times of ressource scarcity.

Sankey diagrams are named after Irish Captain Matthew Henry Phineas Riall Sankey, who is considered to have been the first to use this type of diagram in 1898 in a publication on the energy efficiency of a steam engine (see reproduction in[1], page 8). While the first charts in black and white were merely used to display one type of flow (e.g steam), using colors for different types of flows has added more degrees of freedom to Sankey diagrams.

[edit] Software

There are a number of software tools that support the drawing of Sankey diagrams:

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Mario Schmidt (2006). "Der Einsatz von Sankey-Diagrammen im Stoffstrommanagement" (pdf). Beitraege der Hochschule Pforzheim (Nr. 124). 
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