Do We Really Need “Entransy”? A Critical Assessment of a New Quantity in Heat Transfer Analysis

Abstract

Recently, a group of scientists introduced a new quantity for the analysis of heat transfer problems. They called it entransy since according to their understanding it is both, an indication of the nature of energy as well as that of the heat transfer ability. This concept is critically assessed on the background of two questions: Is entransy as an extension of the well established theory of heat transfer consistent with this classical approach? And: Is there a real need for the extension of the classical theory by introducing entransy as a quantity that was missing in the past?

Reply to “Entransy unmasked” by Awad

“…They only showed their viewpoint in the second paragraph of the Introduction section, and there is no further explanation for their viewpoint or analysis or discussion on the entransy theory. The comments from Grazzini and Rocchetti [13] are just the repetition of the words from Grazzini et al [7] and Herwig [11], which have already been replied and discussed. In addition, the misused concepts in Açıkkalp's work [21] have also been pointed out in Ref.…”

“…In Ref. [13], the authors only cited the work of Grazzini et al [7] and Herwig [11], and claimed that ''entransy does not contain any new information in comparison with a classical analysis of systems using entropy''. The authors did not cite any of the papers [3,17,19,20] on the other side.…”

“…[1], the comments from Manjunath and Kaushik [14] were also introduced. If we read the parts about the entransy theory in this review paper carefully, it can be found that the major comments are based on the viewpoints of Bejan [10], Herwig [11], and Grazzini et al [7], but without examining the replies and rebuttals [3,17,19,20]. In this paragraph, Awad [1] also quoted the words of Manjunath and Kaushik [14] that ''''entransy'' is the completely arbitrary decision (with zero basis in physics) to regard T 2 as a new thermodynamic property (called ''entransy'') that represents ''the ability of a solid body to have heat transfer'''', and ''in its present form, it has been shown that entransy is an unnecessary quantity because any of its applications can be reduced to more general entropy generation approach which is well established''.…”

“…[11], Herwig presented an assessment of entransy and listed some questions about the entransy theory. Awad [12] also published a comment paper on the entransy theory, repeating the words of Bejan, Herwig and Grazzini et al, nothing more.…”

Constructal Law: Optimization as Design Evolution

“…Yet, a disturbing trend has emerged in publishing: it is to copy the original work, change a few key words (i.e., "translate"), and publish the same idea brazenly as "new" after replacing the Darcy diffusion language with thermal diffusion language (as Guo et al [47] have done). Critiques of Guo et al [47] were just published independently by seven groups of authors [48][49][50][51][52][53][54], who showed that the concept of "entransy" is false and not useful.…”