Thermal reservoir

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A thermal reservoir, also thermal energy reservoir or thermal bath, is a

source and sink of heat, it is often also referred to as a heat reservoir or heat bath.

Lakes, oceans and rivers often serve as thermal reservoirs in geophysical processes, such as the weather. In atmospheric science, large air masses in the atmosphere often function as thermal reservoirs.

Since the temperature of a thermal reservoir T does not change during the heat transfer, the change of entropy in the reservoir is

The microcanonical partition sum ${\displaystyle Z(E)}$ of a heat bath of temperature T has the property

where ${\displaystyle k_{\text{B}}}$ is the .

For an engineering application, see

.

See also

• Heat sink
• Thermal battery
• Thermal energy storage

References

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