Equipartition of forces as a lower bound on the entropy production in heat exchange

摘要

We show that the optimum operation of one heat exchanger is the operation that is known since long from ex- perience, namely the one given by certain counter-current flows. The results is according tot he principle of equipartition of forces (EoF). The principle of equipartition of forces poses ideal boundary conditions for operation. The boundary conditions may not be realizable in practice, but give a lower bound on the entropy production of the heat exchange process, and thus a measure on the efficiency of the process