2014-04-10
10:15 at HCI J 574

Onsager principle in dynamics of soft matter

Masao Doi

Beihang University, Beijing, China

In the celebrated paper on the reciprocal relation for the kinetic coefficients in irreversible processes, Onsager extended Rayleigh’s principle of the least energy dissipation to general irreversible processes. In this paper, I shall show that this principle gives us a very convenient framework for deriving many equations which describe the non-linear and non-equilibrium phenomena in soft matter, such as (i) stress-diffusion coupling in solutions, (ii) gel dynamics (ii) molecular modeling for viscoelasticity and (iv) nemato-hydrodynamics etc. Onsager principle can therefore be regarded as a general ground for soft matter physics.