Continuum mechanics versus violations of the second law of thermodynamics

Spontaneous, random violations of the second law become relevant as the length and/or timescales become very small. Modern statistical physics tells us that the second law then needs to be replaced by the fluctuation theorem and, mathematically, the irreversible entropy evolves as a submartingale. T...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of thermal stresses Vol. 39; no. 6; pp. 734 - 749
Main Authors Ostoja-Starzewski, Martin, Venkatesh Raghavan, Bharath
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Philadelphia Taylor & Francis 02.06.2016
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Acceleration
Computational fluid dynamics
Continuum thermomechanics
Couette flow
dissipation
Entropy
fluctuation theorem
Fluid flow
Fluid mechanics
Nanostructure
Physics
second law violations
submartingale
Theorems
Thermodynamics
Thickness
wavefront
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Summary:Spontaneous, random violations of the second law become relevant as the length and/or timescales become very small. Modern statistical physics tells us that the second law then needs to be replaced by the fluctuation theorem and, mathematically, the irreversible entropy evolves as a submartingale. This is illustrated on the Couette flow of a molecular fluid. On the continuum level, such phenomena lead to a framework of thermomechanics relying on stochastic (rather than deterministic) functionals of energy and entropy, which are applied in heat diffusion and thermoelasticity settings. Counterintuitive thermomechanical behaviors are also discussed in (1) the evolution of acceleration wavefronts of nanoscale thickness and (2) the fluid mechanics which has to enter a permeability model of a poroelastic medium with nanoscale pores.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
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ISSN:0149-5739
1521-074X
DOI:10.1080/01495739.2016.1169140