Fundamentals of exergy analysis, entropy generation minimization, and the generation of flow architecture

By A. Bejan. 2002

605 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper outlines the fundamentals of the methods of exergy analysis and entropy generation minimization (or thermodynamic optimization—the minimization of exergy destruction). The paper begins with a review of the concept of irreversibility, entropy generation, or exergy destruction. Examples illustrate the accounting for exergy flows and accumulation in closed systems, open systems, heat transfer processes, and power and refrigeration plants. The proportionality between exergy destruction and entropy generation sends the designer in search of improved thermodynamic performance subject to finite‐size constraints and specified environmental conditions. Examples are drawn from energy storage systems for sensible heat and latent heat, solar energy, and the generation of maximum power in a power plant model with finite heat transfer surface inventory. It is shown that the physical structure (geometric configuration, topology) of the system springs out of the process of global thermodynamic optimization subject to global constraints. This principle generates structure not only in engineering but also in physics and biology (constructal theory). Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Subfields: Mechanical Engineering, Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0317a5c733df929a64d85cacfec8999b8aea002e

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In Mechanical Engineering

In Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

Citations in the corpus

A critical review on energy, exergy, exergoeconomic and economic (4-E) analysis of thermal power plants (2017, methodology): “The fundamentals of exergy analysis method along with minimization of entropy generation and its applicability for the system optimization were reviewed with the help of some examples [16].”
Exergoeconomic analysis and optimization of combined heat and power production: A review (2009, methodology): “This method has been applied and compared with SPECO approach for the exergoeconomic analysis and optimization of combined heat and power plants [45–57,60].”
On the “area to point” flow problem based on constructal theory (2007, background): “There are many scholars who have made a lot of studies on this problem using constructal theory [1–14].”
Metrics for optimising the multi-dimensional value of resources recovered from waste in a circular economy: A critical review (2017, background): “…streams, e.g. mass, heat, work, that flow through a system) that can be obtained from a system that moves from a particular state to a state of equilibrium with the environment, based on the second law of thermodynamics (Table 2) (Bejan, 2002; Gundersen, 2009; Wall, 1977; Wall et al., 1986, 1994).”