Investigating Entropy Generation in a Thermal Cloak Corresponding Different Material Layer Number

Abstract

In this study, entropy analysis was introduced to characterize the thermodynamic properties of a two-dimensional (2D) thermal cloak consisting of multiple layers. The local entropy generation rate distribution was obtained, and the total entropy generation of different models was calculated. The irreversible extent of the heat transfer increased in the even layers with larger thermal conductivities. A better thermal cloak not only enhances thermal protection but also concentrates the energy fluctuations on the plate. The augmentation entropy generation number is used to identify the best cloaking scheme by varying the cloaking layer number from 1 to 20. This work shows that the fitting equation derived by analysis of variance (ANOVA) can be used to optimize the number of layers of the cloaking structure.