Entropy production and Newton's cooling law

Abstract

The thermodynamic theory of irreversible processes was applied to studying heat exchange described by Newton's cooling law. It is shown that the steady states described by Newton's law are not states having minimum entropy production; it is then proved that Newton's law is not a consequence of a linear relationship between fluxes and thermodynamic forces. Systems are often constrained and heat exchange can be optimised if entropy production is minimised according to the second law. © 2010.