Quasistatic process

Thermodynamics
The classical Carnot heat engine
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Material properties Property databases Specific heat capacity  ${\displaystyle c=}$ ${\displaystyle T}$ ${\displaystyle \partial S}$ ${\displaystyle N}$ ${\displaystyle \partial T}$ Compressibility  ${\displaystyle \beta =-}$ ${\displaystyle 1}$ ${\displaystyle \partial V}$ ${\displaystyle V}$ ${\displaystyle \partial p}$ Thermal expansion  ${\displaystyle \alpha =}$ ${\displaystyle 1}$ ${\displaystyle \partial V}$ ${\displaystyle V}$ ${\displaystyle \partial T}$
Equations Carnot's theorem Clausius theorem Fundamental relation Ideal gas law Maxwell relations Onsager reciprocal relations Bridgman's equations Table of thermodynamic equations
Potentials Free energy Free entropy Internal energy ${\displaystyle U(S,V)}$ Enthalpy ${\displaystyle H(S,p)=U+pV}$ Helmholtz free energy ${\displaystyle A(T,V)=U-TS}$ Gibbs free energy ${\displaystyle G(T,p)=H-TS}$
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In thermodynamics, a quasi-static process, also known as a quasi-equilibrium process (from Latin quasi, meaning ‘as if’^[1]), is a thermodynamic process that happens slowly enough for the system to remain in internal physical (but not necessarily chemical) thermodynamic equilibrium. An example of this is quasi-static expansion of a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen gas, where the volume of the system changes so slowly that the pressure remains uniform throughout the system at each instant of time during the process.^[2] Such an idealized process is a succession of physical equilibrium states, characterized by infinite slowness.^[3]

Only in a quasi-static thermodynamic process can we exactly define intensive quantities (such as pressure, temperature, specific volume, specific entropy) of the system at any instant during the whole process; otherwise, since no internal equilibrium is established, different parts of the system would have different values of these quantities, so a single value per quantity may not be sufficient to represent the whole system. In other words, when an equation for a change in a state function contains P or T, it implies a quasi-static process.