Onsager reciprocal relations


Onsager reciprocal relations

[′ȯn‚säg·ər ri′sip·rə·kəl ri′lā·shənz] (thermodynamics) A set of conditions which state that the matrix, whose elements express various fluxes of a system (such as diffusion and heat conduction) as linear functions of the various conjugate affinities (such as mass and temperature gradients) for systems close to equilibrium, is symmetric when certain definitions are chosen for these fluxes and affinities.