Engineering thermodynamics

J A Leach holds a Ph.D. from the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Cape Town. He holds an MSc in Applied Mathematics and a National Diploma in Mechanical Engineering. He is a member of the South African Mathematical Society (SAMS) and the South African Institute of Physics (SAIP).

• Thermodynamics - heat, work and the system, units, specific heat capacity, gas laws, the laws of thermodynamics; flow processes and reversibility - the working fluid, reversibility, the steady-flow energy equation; heating of gases - work done by an expanding gas, constant volume process, constant pressure process, isothermal process, adiabatic process, polytropic process, entropy; steam - properties of steam, formation of steam, properties of water and steam tables, enthalpy, specific volume of steam, interpolation of steam tables, enthalpy-entropy chart for steam, the internal energy of steam, entropy of steam, isentropic (or adiabatic) process; throttling of steam - throttling, separating calorimeter, throttling calorimeter, combined calorimeter; boilers - types of boilers, treatment of the supply water, boiler efficiency, equivalent evaporation, heat supplied; steam plant - steam plant, rankine cycle; condensers and air pumps - purpose of a condenser, types of condensers, purpose of an air pump, types of air pumps, Dalton's law of partial pressure, condenser efficiency, heat flow in the condenser, number of tubes in a condenser; combustion fuels - composition, calorific value of a fuel, the bomb calorimeter, combustion equations, air required according to mass, air required according to volume, products of combustion by mass, products of combustion by volume, orsat apparatus; heat transfer - processes of heat transfer, conduction through a flat wall, conduction through a composite wall, conduction through a cylinder, conduction through a composite cylinder, surface and overall heat transfer.