Least dissipation principle of heat transport potential capacity and its application in heat conduction optimization

The heat conduction following the Fourier law widely exists in nature and engineering. Usually, the thermal resistance is applied to evaluating the perform-ance of the heat conduction, i.e. the less resistance corre-sponds to the better performance. Therefore, the heat conduction is often enhanced by means of using high conductivity materials or reducing the thermal contact resistance. The more general performance criterion is the heat duty for the given temperature difference DT, or the temp…

Least dissipation principle of heat transport potential capacity and its application in heat conduction optimization

In the viewpoint of heat transfer, heat transport potential capacity and its dissipation are defined based on the essence of heat transport phenomenon. Respectively, their physical meanings are the overall heat transfer capa-bility and the dissipation rate of the heat transfer capacity. Then the least dissipation principle of heat transport poten-tial capacity is presented to enhance the heat conduction efficiency in the heat conduction optimization. The principle is, for a conduction process with the constant integral of the thermal conductivity over the region, the optimal distribu-tion of thermal conductivity, which corresponds to the high-est heat conduction efficiency, is characterized by the least dissipation of heat transport potential capacity. Finally the principle is applied to some cases in heat conduction optimi-zation.