Coleman–Noll procedure

Summary

The Coleman–Noll procedure is a method of continuum mechanics that turns the second law into restrictions on constitutive equations. One requires the Clausius–Duhem inequality to hold in every process that the balance laws allow. Since the rates of the state variables can be chosen freely at a given instant, the coefficients of these rates must vanish. It is the central tool of rational thermodynamics and gives, for example, the free energy as a potential for stress and entropy.