ETH Polymer Physics seminar


2014-07-16
10:15 at HCI J 574

TOWARDS GEOMETRIC THERMODYNAMICS: Comparison of the GENERIC and SEA formalisms with focus on the Boltzmann Equation

Alberto Montefusco

Politecnico di Milano

The talk will deal with the dynamical modelling of thermodynamic systems out of equilibrium and is articulated in three parts. The first is a brief review of the main interpretations attached to Thermodynamics and of some dynamic principles proposed during the twentieth century. The second aims at understanding similarities and differences between the Steepest Entropy Ascent (SEA) dynamical model proposed by Beretta and the GENERIC formalism developed, among others, by Grmela and Öttinger. In order to accomplish this task, a reformulation of SEA dynamics using Differential Geometry formalism has been considered necessary. In the third part, the realisation of both these dynamical models in Kinetic Theory is illustrated: the Boltzmann equation is interpreted differently using the building blocks of the two models. Moreover, as SEA aims at proposing new model equations for its resolution, numerical results of the application of SEA methods for the relaxation from non-equilibrium states are presented: good agreement with the ‘exact’ solution is shown for near-equilibrium situations, while poorer results are obtained farther from equilibrium. This means that improvements, with particular regard to the choice of the metric, are needed.


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