Reconciliation of thermal and mechanical interdependence is made possible by casting away the concept of heat. Defined are the dissipation and available energy density as two mutually exclusive quantities; thermal and mechanical changes become two aspects of the same process that coexist and are in continual operation. This is accomplished by interlacing the rotation, deformation and change in element size into one single operation; irreversibility is embedded inherently into the theory. No a priori assumpt