Metrics and Energy Landscapes in Irreversible Thermodynamics

Metrics and Energy Landscapes in Irreversible Thermodynamics

We describe how several metrics are possible in thermodynamic state space but that only one, Weinhold’s, has achieved widespread use. Lengths calculated based on this metric have been used to bound dissipation in finite-time (irreversible) processes be they continuous or discrete, and described in the energy picture or the entropy picture. Examples are provided from thermodynamics of heat conve...

Thermodynamics and the glass transition in model energy landscapes.

We determine the liquid-state thermodynamics for a model energy landscape corresponding to soft spheres with a mean-field attraction. We consider two approximations, in which the distribution of potential energy minima is either Gaussian or binomial, and for each we calculate the liquid spinodal, binodal, and "effective" glass transition locus. The resulting models provide a unified description...

Irreversible Thermodynamics

There are alternative sets of postulates which yield entirely equivalent results for several important theories. In such cases the choice of a particular set of postulates may be based upon mathematical simplicity, close relationship to experiments or to the nature of the theory, or merely personal taste. While the postulate of conservation of energy is usually presented in similar form for the...

Thermoelastkity and Irreversible Thermodynamics

A unified treatment is presented of thermoelasticity by application and further developments of the methods of irreversible thermodynamics. The concept of generalized free energy introduced in a previous publication plays the role of a " thermoelastic potential " and is used along with a new definition of the dissipation function in terms of the time derivative of an entropy displacement. The g...

Basics of Irreversible Thermodynamics