Stable equilibrium, departure from

These and other more sophisticated examples have a clear physical implication departure from stable equilibrium is an inherent characteristic of a system that observers can ascertain reproducibly regardless of their personal knowledge about the... 

In thermodynamics, for a given energy a measure of departure from stable equilibrium is the adiabatic availability—the larger the availability, the greater the departure from stable equilibrium. This availability in turn is related to the value of the entropy of the system since the smaller the entropy, the larger the availability. In other words, common sense dictates that entropy is an inherent property of matter in the same sense that energy is an inherent property of matter. Hence, the inconsistency of statistical thermodynamics. 

A plate buckles when the in-plane compressive load gets so large that the originally flat equilibrium state is no longer stable, and the plate deflects into a nonflat (wavy) configuration. The load at which the departure from the flat state takes place is called the buckling load. The flat equilibrium state has only in-plane forces and undergoes only ex-... 

That is, the total increase in entropy (which is a measure of disorder ) comes from heat transferred across the system boundary (Sq). However, a flowing fluid is in a dynamic, or irreversible, state. Because entropy is proportional to the degree of departure from the most stable (equilibrium) conditions, this means that the further the system is from equilibrium, the greater the entropy, so for a dynamic (flow) system... 

Constant Pattern Behavior In a real system the finite resistance to mass transfer and axial mixing in the column lead to departures from the idealized response predicted by equilibrium theory. In the case of a favorable isotherm the shock wave solution is replaced by a constant pattern solution. The concentration profile spreads in the initial region until a stable situation is reached in which the mass transferrate is the same at all points along the wave front and exactly matches the shock velocity. In this situation the fluid-phase and adsorbed-phase profiles become coincident. This represents a stable situation and the profile propagates without further change in shape—hence the term constant pattern. 

A system may be in a stable, metastable, unstable, or neutral equilibrium state. In a stable system, a perturbation causes small departures from the original conditions, which are restorable. In an unstable equilibrium, even a small perturbation causes large irreversible changes. A metastable system may be stable or unstable according to the level and direction of perturbation. All thermodynamic equilibria are stable or metastable, but not unstable. This means that all natural processes evolve toward an equilibrium state, which is a global attractor. 

The irradiation-induced amorphization of intermetallic compounds is of scientific interest and technological importance, as it entails the complete loss of measurable crystalline order. It is an extreme response of the solid to a combination of a large external input of energy and the presence of kinetic constraints that preclude the formation or the maintenance of the stable intermetallic phase. The kinetic path taken by the material to arrive at this large departure from equilibrium depends not only on the characteristics of the material but on the irradiation conditions as well. The spatial and temporal balance between irradiation damage and annealing can... 

As seen in 10-6, departure of the leaving group from an acetal gives a particularly stable carbocation. It is also possible to convert a dimethylketal directly to a dithiane by reaction with butane 1,4-dithiol on clay. ° These are equilibrium reactions, and most often the equilibrium is shifted by removing the lower-boiling alcohol by distillation. Enol ethers can be prepared by treating an alcohol with an enol ester or a different enol ether, with mercuric acetate as a catalyst, example. 

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