This classic account stresses the role of time-scales in determining the nature and extent of state space, an approach that makes clear the unity of classical, kinetic, statistical, and process thermodynamics. "Superb....It has no equal....Should be read by anyone who wants to understand what thermodynamics--regarded as a branch of physics--is all about....No one concerned with thermodynamics, and not merely that of fluid systems, can afford to be without this book, be he undergraduate student, graduate student or research worker." --Journal of Fluid Mechanics/

In this invaluable book, macroscopic irreversible thermodynamics is presented in its realm and its splendor by appealing to the notion of internal variables of state. This applies to both fluids and solids with or without microstructures of mechanical or electromagnetic origin. This unmatched richness of essentially nonlinear behaviors is the result of the use of modern mathematical techniques such as convex analysis in a clear-cut framework which allows one to put under the umbrella of ?irreversible thermodynamics? behaviors which until now have been commonly considered either not easily covered, or even impossible to incorporate into such a framework.The book is intended for all students and researchers whose main concern is the rational modeling of complex and/or new materials with physical and engineering applications, such as those accounting for coupled-field, hysteresis, fracture, nonlinear-diffusion, and phase-transformation phenomena.

Based on the authors’ successful theory for extended irreversible thermodynamics, the book analyzes the thermodynamic aspects of several phenomena induced by the flow in fluid systems.

This multiauthored volume sketches the applications of nonequilibrium thermodynamics to complex systems. These are characterized by an involved form of the Gibbs equation and include systems such as solutions of macromolecules, magnetic hysteresis bodies, viscoelastic fluids, polarizable media, fluids under stresses and in the presence of essential nonstationarities, and high temperature gradients. As a rule, the so- called internal variables and/or dissipative fluxes are essential in the thermodynamic description of such systems.