A concise treatment of the fundamentals of thermodynamics is presented in this book. In particular, emphasis is placed on discussions of the second law, a unique feature of thermodynamics, which states the limitations of converting thermal energy into mechanical energy. The entropy function that permits the loss in the potential of a real thermodynamic process to be assessed, the maximum possible work in a process, and irreversibility and equilibrium are deduced from the law through physical and intuitive considerations. They are applicable in mitigating waste heat and are useful for solving energy, power, propulsion and climate-related issues.
The treatment is not restricted to properties and functions of ideal gases. The ideal gas assumption is invoked as a limiting case. Reversible paths between equilibrium states are obtained using reversible heat engines and reversible heat pumps between environment and systems to determine the entropy changes and the maximum work. The conditions of thermodynamic equilibrium comprising mechanical, thermal, chemical and phase equilibrium are addressed and the species formed at equilibrium in a chemical reaction at a given temperature and pressure are obtained. The molecular basis for the laws of thermodynamics, temperature, internal energy changes, entropy, reversibility and equilibrium are briefly discussed.
The book serves as a reference for undergraduate and graduate students alongside thermodynamics textbooks.
About the Author: Professor John Lee is Emeritus Professor of Mechanical Engineering at McGill University, Montreal. He has been carrying out fundamental and applied research in combustion, detonation, shock-wave physics, and high pressure and temperature phenomenon for the past sixty years. As a consultant, Lee has served on a large number of government and industrial committees not only in Canada but in US and other parts of the world. Among the prizes that he has received are the silver medal from the Combustion Institute (1980), the Dionizy Smolensnki Medal from Polish Academy of Sciences (1988), and the Numa Manson gold medal (1991) for his outstanding contributions to the fundamentals and applied aspects of explosion and detonation phenomenon. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Professor K. Ramamurthi completed his Ph. D with Professor John Lee at McGill as a Commonwealth Scholar in 1976. He worked as deputy director in the Indian Space Research Organization and as a professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. His notable contributions to research have been in instability phenomenon, rocket propulsion, and explosion safety. He has been on several national and international committees and panels on propulsion, combustion and shock waves and is chairman of the Combustion, Detonics and Shock Wave (CDSW) Panel of the Defense Research and Development Organization in India. He continues to teach thermodynamics and is an honorary fellow of the High Energy Material Society.
