On using the minimum energy dissipation to estimate the steady-state of a flow network and discussion about the resulting power-law:application to tree-shaped networks in HVAC systems

Víctor-Manuel Soto-Francés, José-Manuel Pinazo-Ojer, Emilio-José Sarabia-Escrivá and Pedro-Juan Martínez-Beltrán

Energy, 2019, vol. 172, issue C, 181-195

Abstract: The paper analyses how to compute the steady-state flow distribution through a given network by using the Minimum Entropy Production (MinEP) principle. For isothermal and incompressible flows, this is equivalent to the minimal dissipation of energy. The conditions that make this method equivalent to the conventional one are studied. There must exist a power-law for the energy dissipation (entropy generation) where the exponent must be the same for the whole network. To our knowledge, Niven was the first to get to this result. However he applied MinEP only to parallel pipes and unfortunately discarded it as a general method.

Keywords: MinEP; Entropy generation; Steady-state; Flow network; HVAC duct network (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:172:y:2019:i:c:p:181-195

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2019.01.060

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