A new proof and generalization of the maximum principle of heat conduction (Q790337)

The author stresses the physical aspects of the maximum principle noting its relation to the second law of thermodynamics. For a temperature distribution T(r,t) satisfying given boundary and initial conditions, and with suitable restrictions imposed on the region V, the density \(\rho\), the specific heat c, and the function \(\lambda\) so that the variational problem of minimizing \[ \int^{\tau}_{0}\int_{V}(\rho c\partial_ tTT+(\lambda /2)(\Delta T)^ 2)dV\quad dt \] will have a solution \(T_ 0(r,t)\) in the set of continuous functions with piecewise continuous partial derivatives, the author proves that \(T_ 0(r,t)\) satisfies the maximum principle with \[ \max \{T_ 0(r,t)| r\in V,\quad 0\leq t\leq \tau \}=\max(\{G(r,t)| r\in \partial V,\quad 0\leq t\leq \tau \}\cup \{F(r)| r\in V\}. \]