Endoreversible thermodynamics: a tool for simulating and comparing processes of discrete systems (Q873699)

The article deals with thermodynamics of endoreversible systems. The latter are systems of reversible subsystems interacting with each other in an irreversible manner. The intention of studying endoreversible systems roots in the observation that the efficiency of real running processes is often compared to the efficiency of reversible, timeless, cyclic processes such as the Carnot, the Joule, the Otto or the Diesel process (which are in fact idealized, quasi-static processes in an equilibrium subspace and which neither exist in nature nor technical applications). In search of more realistic processes to which real running processes could be compared, the concept of endoreversible machines, implying the modeling of irreversibility by dissipative interaction between the subsystem of the machine, is proposed. As ``the aim of the paper is mostly conceptual'' (quoting the authors from their introduction to the paper), the mathematical techniques used in this article are mostly restricted to simple algebraic manipulations of the first and second laws of thermodynamics and the consideration of expressions in their limit behavior with respect to a certain parameter/variable. In the description of the presented concepts (e.g. when introducing process classes on manifolds, the equivalence of processes and families of processes, etc.) notation is borrowed from physics, mathematics and general thermodynamics; however, as mathematical details and subtleties which are of no relevance in the present context are omitted, the paper is essentially self-contained and thus open to a broad audience of readers.