Papers by Keyword: Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics

Abstract: The process of crystal growth in a metastable multicomponent melt has a high speed of the solidification front, which captures atoms of some other components. As a result of such a growth, at the surface of the growing crystal the effect of “impurity capture” is observed, and the concentrations of components significantly deviate from the local equilibrium. Under such conditions, the conventional physico-chemical methods for description of processes at the interfacial surface become inapplicable. Therefore, a new variational approach was applied for an integrated description of diffusion and thermal processes at the phase interface. The growth rate of crystal nucleus in a metastable melt was obtained, using the methods of non-equilibrium thermodynamics. The developed approach allows estimation of the degree of metastable effects influence on a crystal growth rate.

Abstract: In recent years, membrane separation technology has emerged as efficient and promising separation process from laboratory scale applications to wide range of technical industrial applications. The development of composite asymmetric membrane is a major breakthrough in membrane research field, as this membrane offers significantly high selectivity without affecting the mechanical durability of the membranes. In this chapter, structural characteristics and different fabrication techniques of composite membranes are reviewed. Moreover the mass transfer mechanism through the composite asymmetric membrane is described in details following solution-diffusion theory, Knudsen diffusion, and series resistance model. Composite membranes are preferred over others because of the high flux and enhanced selectivity without disturbing the mechanical stability of the membranes. These membranes are now widely employed in the applications of reverse osmosis (RO), nanofiltration (NF), pervaporation, gas separation, hydrocarbon fractionations, etc. As composite asymmetric membranes are “tailor-made” in nature, membrane characteristics can be tuned accordingly depending on their end use. Therefore plentiful research opportunities still exist to elevate their performance ability in terms of stability, selectivity and fouling resistance, which will in turn augment its application domain.

Abstract: This paper shows how to move from a specification of free energy for the solidification of a binary alloy to the dynamical equations using the elegance of a dissipative bracket analogous to the Poisson bracket of Hamiltonian mechanics. A key new result is the derivation of the temperature equation for single-phase thermal-solutal models, which contains generalisations and extra terms which challenge standard models. We also present, for the first time, the temperature equation for thermal multi-phase field models. There are two main ingredients: one, the specification of the free energy in terms of the time and space dependent field variables: $n$-phases $\phi_i$, a concentration variable $c$, and temperature $T$; two, the specification of the dissipative bracket in terms of these variables, their gradients and a set of diffusion parameters, which may themselves depend on the field variables. The paper explains the method within this context and demonstrates its thermodynamic admissibility.

Abstract: Melting and solidification are both phase transformations involving a liquid and a solid phase. In a simplifying procedure melting could be treated as the inverse process of solidification. However, there are substantial differences in the thermodynamics and kinetics of melting and solidification. The elaboration of a model for melting of binary alloys has lead to the possibility to also describe solidification processes more consistently. Input parameters in the model are the Gibbs Free Energy curves and the diffusion coefficients in the liquid and solid phase, respectively. Assumptions about the thermodynamic state of the interface like local equilibrium are not necessary, recently developed interface thermodynamics is coupled with the kinetic equations. Simulations results for steady-state melting and solidification are compared. The treatment of both solidification and melting yields some insight in the proper¬ties of the liquid/solid interface and its role during the phase transformation.

Abstract: Non-equilibrium thermodynamics theory is applied to the description of plastic deformation in pure FCC metals at the steady state. The saturation flow stress is predicted as a function of temperature and strain rate for Al, Cu, Ni and Ag. The implications on the cell/subgrain size and dislocation density are explored.

Abstract: In this paper we give a brief presentation of the approaches we have recently developed on the oxidation of metals. Firstly, we present an analytical model based on non-equilibrium thermodynamics to describe the reaction kinetics present during the oxidation of a metal. Secondly, we present the molecular dynamics results obtained with a code specially tailored to study the oxidation and growth of an oxide film of aluminium. Our simulations present an excellent agreement with experimental results.