S. Chandra – Energy Entropy and Engines

Автор: S. Chandra
Название книги: Energy Entropy and Engines
Формат: PDF
Жанр: Физика
Страницы: 402
Качество: Изначально компьютерное, E-book

Textbook concisely introduces engineering thermodynamics, covering concepts including energy, entropy, equilibrium and reversibility

Novel explanation of entropy and the second law of thermodynamics
Presents abstract ideas in an easy to understand manner
Includes solved examples and end of chapter problems
Accompanied by a website hosting a solutions manual

This book is a text for teaching a one‐semester, introductory engineering thermodynamics
course. Its most important goal is to make students understand the meaning of fundamental
concepts such as energy, entropy, equilibrium and reversibility, which form the foundation of
engineering science. It uses simple, direct language and relies on physical rather than abstract,
mathematical definitions. Every new concept is introduced starting from first principles, and
only after explaining why it is necessary.
Thermodynamics is different from most other engineering courses, in that it expects students
to grasp an entirely new concept, entropy, which they have never encountered before.
Traditional thermodynamics texts resort to giving a purely mathematical definition of entropy,
and students learn to use the property for solving problems without ever forming a physical
picture of what it means. This book introduces entropy by combining macroscopic definitions
with statistical descriptions based on the energy distribution of molecules. Readers are not
expected to learn statistical mechanics but use analogies to acquire an intuitive grasp of the
concept of entropy and understand why the second law of thermodynamics is a result of
the laws of probability.
Chapters 1 to 3 are intended for students to read on their own, with only selected portions
being discussed in lectures. Chapter 1 describes how thermodynamics grew out of attempts to
understand and improve steam engines and puts the first and second laws in context. It is useful
in motivating the study of thermodynamics and explaining why it is such a fundamental
part of science and engineering. Most students will already be familiar with some of the
material covered in Chapters 2 and 3, including Newton’s laws, the definitions of kinetic and
potential energy, molar quantities and the ideal gas equation and can review these sections
independently.
Thermodynamics textbooks typically start, immediately after the introduction, by teaching
how to read tabulated properties of saturated liquids and vapours. Students are immediately
overwhelmed by terms such as internal energy and enthalpy before they understand how these
properties are used, and they are left with the impression that thermodynamics is largely an
exercise in reading tables and charts. In the first six chapters of this book, while students are
still becoming familiar with the laws of thermodynamics, there is no discussion of phase
change. Once the second law has been understood liquid–vapour mixtures are treated as systems
in equilibrium that can be analysed using the laws of thermodynamics. Chapter 7 starts
with a brief discussion of the chemical potential and the Clausius–Clapeyron equation.
Covering this material takes only one or two lectures and makes it much easier to understand
phase equilibrium and the significance of property tables. However, if instructors prefer not to
include it, it is possible to omit the relevant sections (Sections 7.3–7.7) without any loss of
continuity.
It should be possible to cover the entire book in a one‐semester introductory course that
teaches the fundamentals of thermodynamics and their application in the analysis of heat
engines and refrigerators. A slower paced course may leave out discussions of exergy
(Section 6.14) and review only a selection of the engine and refrigeration cycles described in
Chapters 9 and 10.