ME 2331/CEE 2331: Thermodynamics

Course Description

Classical Thermodynamics is the study of energy interactions between a selected domain and its surroundings. Human fascination for energy can be traced back to the primordial times, when fire was discovered as a defense weapon and as a warming mechanism. The discovery of steam, over two-thousand years ago by the Greeks, attracted again the human attention to the use of thermal energy but for other purposes. The 19th hundreds, in particular, marked an epoch of great advances in Thermodynamics, particularly the advent of the First and the Second Laws, which are nowadays paramount to the design, operation, and the economical as well as engineering feasibility determination of energy systems.

Guided by the contemporary need for energy conservation, optimization, alternative energy sources, and the minimization of environmental impact, the course introduces both First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics concurrently to the students. With these two concepts hand-in-hand, the students perform complete analyses of energy systems by learning to formulate the energy conservation equation (First Law, energy quantity), and the entropy conservation equation (Second Law, energy quality), applicable to any energy process. The mastering of the First and Second Laws is accomplished by considering, throughout the course, many practical engineering systems executing simple processes, such as the pressuring of a tire or the boiling of water (for cooking), or executing complex processes, such as the power producing by an internal combustion engine or the production of electricity to feed an entire city by a nuclear power plant.

Instructor Biography

Jose’ L. Lage is an accomplished, internationally recognized Professor of Mechanical Engineering at SMU, where he started his career in 1991, immediately after obtaining his PhD from Duke University. He is the author of several book chapters and over a hundred articles, a Professional Engineer in the State of Texas and a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). He currently serves as the Associate Editor of the Journal of Heat Transfer (ASME) and as an Editorial Board Member of the International Journal of Mechanics and Thermodynamics.

He has over twenty years of experience developing research projects and teaching thermo-fluid courses, including Thermodynamics, at the undergraduate and graduate levels. At SMU, he has in the past few years brought together his academic experiences as a student and as a Professor into a new strategy for teaching Thermodynamics, one in which theory and practice are presented side-by-side, and the developing analytical skills (mathematics) becomes rooted in a strong physics understanding of the subject. A consequence of his efforts has been the production of a blitzkrieg strategy to Thermodynamics learning, which paves the way for mastering the most cumbersome concepts in a very efficient and rapid way. This engaging, very efficient teaching strategy fits very well with the fast-pace J Term concept.

Learning Outcomes and Benefits

At the end of the course, the students will:

• Be able to identify and analyze energy processes in the framework of classical Thermodynamics
• Be able to determine initial and final states, identify common energy forms, such as kinetic, potential, internal thermal, heat and work, and forecast the efficiencies of energy processes
• Know how the various energy forms interact, and predict their variations through the energy conservation equation (First Law)
• Be able to apply the conservation of entropy equation (Second Law) to predict the feasibility and irreversibility of a process, and the degree of lost useful work
• Be able to identify, simulate and predict the performance of: (a) practical devices commonly used in the energy industry, such as: heat exchangers, boilers, condensers, evaporators, diffusers, turbines, open feed-water heaters, pumps, compressors, and expansion valves; and, (b) complex systems, such as: heat engines, internal combustion engines, refrigerators, and heat-pumps