Phenomenological equations and onsager relations : the case of dependent fluxes or forces

Abstract

The influence of linear dependencies between the fluxes or between the forces occurring in the expression for the entropy production on the phenomenological coefficients and the Onsager reciprocal relations is investigated.

If both sets of variables are dependent the phenomenological coefficients are not uniquely defined. It is shown that they always can be chosen such as to satisfy the Onsager relations.