Average temperature and Maxwellian iteration in multitemperature mixtures of fluids

This paper treats the nonequilibrium processes in mixtures of fluids under the assumption that each constituent is characterized by its own velocity and temperature field. First we discuss the concept of the average temperature of mixture based upon considerations that the internal energy of the mixture is the same as in the case of a single-temperature mixture. As a consequence, it is shown that the entropy of the mixture reaches a local maximum in equilibrium. An illustrative example of homogeneous mixtures is given to support the theoretical considerations. Through the procedure of Maxwellian iteration a new constitutive equation for nonequilibrium temperatures of constituents is obtained in a classical limit, together with the Fick’s law for the diffusion flux. These results obtained for n-species are in perfect agreement with a recent classical approach of thermodynamics of irreversible processes in multitemperature case due to Gouin and Ruggeri and generalize our previous papers concerning the case of a binary mixture.