What is tortuosity defined as?

Tortuosity is defined as the ratio of the length traveled by a particle in a medium to the shortest straight-line length. This concept is critical in fields such as tissue engineering and fluid transport, as it describes how convoluted or twisted a pathway is through a porous medium.

In more simple terms, if a particle were to travel through a medium with twists and turns, the actual distance it travels would be longer than the straight-line distance between the starting and ending points. The tortuosity value thus reflects how much more distance is needed due to the irregularities present in the medium, impacting diffusion, filtration, and fluid flow within tissues or biomaterials.

Understanding tortuosity is important in assessing how effective nutrients or therapeutic agents can diffuse through engineered tissues or natural biological environments, influencing the design and functionality of scaffold materials in tissue engineering applications.