Thermodynamic optimization and constructal design

Thermodynamic optimization and constructal designThis special issue focuses for the first time on a new development in thermodynamic analysis and optimization: the constructal method and the universal process of the generation of energy system configuration.Why is the generation of configuration important, and why focusing on it is new in science?We all learn that modern thermodynamics grew out of Sadi Carnot's contemplation of the functioning of fire-driven engines.The first law and the second law allow us to analyse and predict how a given heat engine will perform.This is powerful science; however, the world of flow systems (heat engines, animals, global circulation, etc.) shows that the performance of such systems increases in time.The first law and the second law are not enough.Performance increases because one flow configuration morphs into, or is replaced by a new configuration that performs better.This parade of better and better drawings is as much a part of physics as the conservation of energy (first law) and the fact that all things flow from high to low (second law).The principle that accounts for this universal tendency of flow systems in time is the constructal law, which was stated in 1996: for a finite-size flow system to persist in time (to live) it must evolve in such a way that it provides easier access to its currents.The generation of flow configuration in accordance with the constructal law is constructal design.The thought that the self-organized and self-optimized flow structures of nature (animate and inanimate) can be reasoned based on the constructal law is constructal theory.The generation of flow configuration belongs in thermodynamics, because starting with the fire-driven engine and ending with geophysical flows and living systems, the generation of flow configuration completes the deterministic edifice that until now rested on only two legs, the first law and the second law.Yildiz Technical University of Istanbul had the vision to organize the first school that taught this new, enlarged thermodynamics: The International Summer School of Thermodynamic Optimization and Constructal Design, 19-23 July 2004.Well-known professors were invited to lecture to an international audience of researchers from academia and industry.