Variational and Extremum Principles in Macroscopic Systems - Hardcover

Sieniutycz, Stanislaw; Farkas, Henrik

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0080444881 ISBN 13: 9780080444888

Publisher: Elsevier Science, 2005

Synopsis

Recent years have seen a growing trend to derive models of macroscopic phenomena encountered in the fields of engineering, physics, chemistry, ecology, self-organisation theory and econophysics from various variational or extremum principles. Through the link between the integral extremum of a functional and the local extremum of a function (explicit, for example, in the Pontryagin’s maximum principle variational and extremum principles are mutually related. Thus it makes sense to consider them within a common context.

The main goal of Variational and Extremum Principles in Macroscopic Systems is to collect various mathematical formulations and examples of physical reasoning that involve both basic theoretical aspects and applications of variational and extremum approaches to systems of the macroscopic world.

The first part of the book is focused on the theory, whereas the second focuses on applications. The unifying variational approach is used to derive the balance or conservation equations, phenomenological equations linking fluxes and forces, equations of change for processes with coupled transfer of energy and substance, and optimal conditions for energy management.

• A unique multidisciplinary synthesis of variational and extremum principles in theory and application
• A comprehensive review of current and past achievements in variational formulations for macroscopic processes
• Uses Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formalisms as a basis for the exposition of novel approaches to transfer and conversion of thermal, solar and chemical energy

About this title

About the Author:

Stanisław Sieniutycz is a former member of the Committee of Chemical Engineering at the Polish Academy of Science and also a Professor of Chemical Engineering at The Warsaw University of Technology, Poland. His research focuses on problems of chemical, environmental, and mechanical engineering with emphasis on control and optimization of chemical, mechanical and electrochemical systems. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Open Systems and Information Dynamics, and Honorary Editor of the Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics. He has served as an Associate Editor of Advances in Thermodynamics Series and Energy & Conversion Management. He has published 10 books, 250 articles and 150 conference papers. He has been a visiting professor at University of Budapest, University of Bern, University of San Diego, University of Delaware and University of Chicago. Prof. Stanislaw Sieniutycz (1940), PhD; ScD, since 1983 a full Professor of Chemical Engineering at Warsaw TU, Poland. Former head of Department of Process Separation at the Institute of Chemical Engineering of Warsaw TU, Poland, 1986-1989. Seminar speaker in about 40 Universities of the USA, 1984-1994. He received MsD in Chemistry in 1962, PhD in Chemical Engineering in 1968, and ScD (habilitation) in Chemical Engineering in 1973, all from Warsaw TU. Visiting professor in Universities: Budapest (Physics), Bern (Physiology), Trondheim (Chemical Physics), San Diego SU (Mathematics), Delaware (Chemical Engineering), and, several times, Chicago (Chemistry). Recognized for applications of analytical mechanics and optimal control in engineering. Author or co-author of about 250 papers and many books.

Review:

"This book will be valuable for mathematicians, physicists, chemists, and engineers, in particular those involoved in the application of the mathematical and thermodynamic knowledge to systems with energy generation and transport, solar radiation, chemical waves, liquid crystals, thermo-elastic media, composites, multiphase flows, porous media, membrane transfer, microeconomics, etc." --INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NONLINEAR SCIENCES AND NUMERICAL SIMULATION, 2006

About this edition

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0080444881
• ISBN 13: 9780080444888
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 810