17-02U

A low-density gas is considered between two coaxial cylinders or two concentric spheres maintained at different temperatures. For the weakly nonequilibrium case, it is found out how the form of the vessel influences on thermodynamic quantities — pressure, internal energy and entropy. The corresponding expressions are obtained within the continuous media approach in the form of expansions in the (average) temperature gradients up to the 4-th order. The result for the entropy is compatible with the second law of thermodynamics. The expansion calculated for the average radial distance describes the internal mass displacement induced by the stationary nonuniform temperature.