Representative layer theory

The concept of the representative layer came about though the work of Donald Dahm, with the assistance of Kevin Dahm and Karl Norris, to describe spectroscopic properties of particulate samples, especially as applied to near-infrared spectroscopy. A representative layer has the same void fraction as the sample it represents and each particle type in the sample has the same volume fraction and surface area fraction as does the sample as a whole.

Source: Wikipedia — Representative layer theory (CC BY-SA 4.0)