The Second Law Today: Using Maximum-Minimum Entropy Generation

Entropy

Umberto Lucia²  Giuseppe Grazzini¹ 

[1] Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale, Università di Firenze, Via S. Marta 3, 50139 Firenze, Italy; E-Mail:;Dipartimento Energia, Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129 Torino, Italy

关键词: entropy;    entropy generation;    entropy production;    irreversibility;    second law analysis;   

DOI  :  10.3390/e17117786

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

There are a great number of thermodynamic schools, independent of each other, and without a powerful general approach, but with a split on non-equilibrium thermodynamics. In 1912, in relation to the stationary non-equilibrium states, Ehrenfest introduced the fundamental question on the existence of a functional that achieves its extreme value for stable states, as entropy does for the stationary states in equilibrium thermodynamics. Today, the new branch frontiers of science and engineering, from power engineering to environmental sciences, from chaos to complex systems, from life sciences to nanosciences, etc. require a unified approach in order to optimize results and obtain a powerful approach to non-equilibrium thermodynamics and open systems. In this paper, a generalization of the Gouy–Stodola approach is suggested as a possible answer to the Ehrenfest question.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.