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Finite dimensional thermo-mechanical systems and second order constraints

In this paper we study a class of physical systems that combine a finite number of mechanical and thermodynamic observables. We call them finite dimensional thermo-mechanical systems. We introduce these systems by means of simple examples. The evolution equations of the involved observables are obtained in each example by using, essentially, the Newton's law and the First Law of Thermodynamics only. We show that such equations are similar to those defining certain mechanical systems with higher order constraints. Moreover, we show that all of the given examples can be described in a variational formalism in terms of second order constrained systems.