ON THE SIGNS OF ONSAGER'S RECIPROCITY RELATIONS IN IRREVERSIBLE THERMODYNAMICS,

Abstract

The conventional presentation of Onsager's reciprocity relations specifies that the appropriate 'flows and forces' used in the rate equations for irreversible, coupled processes are obtained from an arbitrary factorization of the entropy production expression. Closer examination shows that arbitrary selection of 'flows', or dependent quantities, in the rate equations leads to an ambiguity of sign in Onsager's relations. For a system with n independent, coupled, irreversible processes, a proof is given that only two of the possible 2 to the nth power sets of rate equations obtained by arbitrarily factoring the entropy production expression completely obey L SUB IJ = L sub ji. The remaining 2 to the nth power - 2 possible sets of rate equations will have at least one pair of coefficients which will obey the antisymmetric relation L sub ij = - L sub ji. (Author)

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 1964
Accession Number
AD0607377

Entities

People

  • D. H. Gage
  • Stephen Jay Kline

Organizations

  • Stanford University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Ambiguity
  • Coefficients
  • Entropy
  • Equations
  • Equations Of State
  • Irreversible Processes
  • Mathematics
  • Physical Properties
  • Production
  • Thermodynamic Properties
  • Thermodynamics

Readers

  • Analytical Mechanics
  • Calculus or Mathematical Analysis
  • Quantum spin resonance or Electron Paramagnetic Resonance spectroscopy.