Macroscopic heat transport equations and heat waves in nonequilibrium states

Abstract Heat transport may behave as wave propagation when the time scale of processes decreases to be comparable to or smaller than the relaxation time of heat carriers. In this work, a generalized heat transport equation including nonlinear, nonlocal and relaxation terms is proposed, which sums up the Cattaneo–Vernotte, dual-phase-lag and phonon hydrodynamic models as special cases. In the frame of this equation, the heat wave propagations are investigated systematically in nonequilibrium steady states, which were usually studied around equilibrium states. The phase (or front) speed of heat waves is obtained through a perturbation solution to the heat differential equation, and found to be intimately related to the nonlinear and nonlocal terms. Thus, potential heat wave experiments in nonequilibrium states are devised to measure the coefficients in the generalized equation, which may throw light on understanding the physical mechanisms and macroscopic modeling of nanoscale heat transport.