Genera Zized Variationa I Prhcz $ Zes for Convective Heat Transfer and Irreversz ’ b k Thermodynamics
Variational principles for convective heat transfer are extended to nonhomogeneous fluids and to fluids with thermal expansion. The results apply to nonlinear problems with temperature dependent properties. The context is restricted to heat transfer but the derivation and a discussion of the physics brings out the general validity of the variational principles for a large category of irreversible processes.
Variational Analysis of Ablation for Variable Properties
The a#cation of variational and Lagrangian thermodynamics is extended to problems of heat conduction with melting boundaries. The physical properties of the conducting material are considered to be temfierature dependent. In particular, the material Alumina (AhOJ representing a class of ceramic materials for which the effective conductivity ksff = kphonon + kphoton is subjected to above treatment and the temperature distribution and the melting rate are found. The results are com$ared with the constuntconductivity case.
The fragmentation of small asteroids in the atmosphere
The fragmentation of a small asteroid in the atmosphere greatly increases its cross-sections for aerodynamic braking and energy dissipation. The differential pressure across a meteoroid disperses its fragments at a velocity that increases with atmospheric density and impact velocity and decreases with meteoroid density. At a typical impact velocity of 22 km/s, the atmosphere absorbs more than half the kinetic energy of stony meteoroids with diameters, D M < 220 M AND IRON METEOROIDS WITH D M < 80 m. The corresponding diameter for comets with impact velocity 50 km/s is D M < 1600 m. Most of this energy dissipation occurs in a fraction of a scale height, which causes large meteoroids to appear to »explode« or »flare« at the end of their visible paths