Optimal control

For isothermal processes, the Second Law of Thermodynamics affirms that the work spent in a driving process is lower bounded. This would be extremely desirable for practical applications since the spent energy will be the minimal possible. However, to achieve this minimum, the driving process must be performed very slowly, taking a long time to be completed. This situation is then out of scope to be employed in practical applications.

To circumvent this problem, great effort has been done in finding optimal protocols that will perform the variation in the parameter with minimal energy. My line of research explores then optimal control in finite-time and weak processes.

Pierre Nazé, Sebastian Deffner, Marcus V. S. Bonança

Optimal work fluctuations for finite-time and weak processes

Pierre Nazé