Connection between extended thermodynamics and transport theory (Q1820968)

Extended thermodynamics is a phenomenological theory of nonequilibrium macroscopic systems which takes dissipative fluxes (heat flux, viscous pressure...) as independent variables of the entropy, besides the classical ones [\textit{J. Casas-Vázquez}, the reviewer and \textit{G. Lebon} (eds.), Recent developments in nonequilibrium thermodynamics (1984; Zbl 0542.00020)]. In this paper, the author starts from a modified moment method in kinetic theory [the author, J. Chem. Phys. 73, 2958-2969 (1980)], which leads to a generalized entropy and entropy flux dependent on dissipative fluxes and to evolution equations for the latter. These results are used to set a more general, purely phenomenological theory of nonequilibrium processes, with special attention to nonlinear flux-force relations. The theory is applied to analyze some transport processes in rheology, semiconductor physics, plasmas and rarefied gas dynamics [the author, J. Chem. Phys. 75, 4031-4039 (1981) and Phys. Fluids 28, 222-231 (1985; Zbl 0565.76123)]. The strong emphasis on nonlinear transport equations could lead to the impression that extended thermodynamics is different from usual irreversible thermodynamics only in the nonlinear domain. This is not true, however, as purely linear relaxation equations for the fluxes lead to the breaking of the local-equilibrium hypothesis.