Finite-time thermodynamics and thermodynamic length

✍ Scribed by Bjarne Andresen

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 424 KB
• Volume: 35
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0035-3159
• DOI: 10.1016/s0035-3159(96)80060-2

✦ Synopsis

Finite-time thermodynamics is the extension of traditional thermodynamics to deal with processes which have explicit time or rate dependencies. In doing so the macroscopic measurable description of thermodynamic systems is preserved while irreversibilities, and hence entropy production, are introduced via empirical rate equations or imposed constraints such as friction coefficients, heat conductances, reaction rates and the like. However, the models remain simple in order to yield physically transparent reference points rather than detailed simulations. Some concepts of reversible thermodynamics, such as potentials and availability, generalize nicely to finite time, others are completely new, eg, endoreversibility and thermodynamic length.