Thermodynamics. From dewdrops to solar power plants (Q5890504)

This is the second and enlarged edition of a book dealing with thermodynamical problems mainly issued from realistic situations which are often taken from the daily life. The book is divided into 14 chapters and contains lots of illustrations.NEWLINENEWLINEIn Chapter 1, the author describes the biological and chemical transformations which occur when cooking vegetables, meat or other food products.NEWLINENEWLINEIn Chapter 2, the author describes the physical phenomena which occur in a pressure cooker. This is the occasion to introduce the Clausius-Clapeyron equality. The author draws the \(v\)-\(T\) diagram and even the \(v\)-\(T\)-\(p\) curve on which he illustrates the notions of critical points and of isobars. He also illustrates the concept with stream machines and the chapter ends with the presentation of the Arrhenius expression of chemical reactions.NEWLINENEWLINEIn Chapter 3, the author moves to the description of natural phenomena such as geysers. He here links the pressure, the temperature and the volume.NEWLINENEWLINEChapter 4 is dedicated to the study of ideal gases. The author comes back to Drebbel's experiments in the 17th century and he presents the famous equation \(pV=nRT\) together with many applications.NEWLINENEWLINEChapter 5 moves to the kinetic theory of gases and first presents the link \( p=\frac{F}{A}\) between the force, the volume and the pressure. Introducing the motion of the molecules in an ideal gas, the author derives the expression \(p=\frac{1}{3}\frac{N}{V}m\left\langle u^{2}\right\rangle \) for the pressure, from which he derives the definition of the temperature and the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution of the pressure in terms of the velocity. A short insight in the Bose-Einstein conduction theory is further presented. Then the author describes the Brownian motion and the chapter ends with a short presentation of real gases.NEWLINENEWLINEThe long Chapter 6 describes the thermodynamics of a domestic oven. This leads to the description of the notions of open, closed or isolated systems, of energy, of heat and of work. The author presents the first principle of thermodynamics in the case of isolated or closed systems. He writes this first principle in a differential form, linking the spatial variations of the energy to that of the heat or volume. He presents the notion of enthalpy and he finally introduces the notion of compressible and incompressible materials.NEWLINENEWLINEChapter 7 considers adiabatic processes. The author first recalls the variations of the pressure in terms of the altitude. He presents the behavior of an adiabatic reversible process and he derives the equation between the temperature, the pressure and the volume in such cases. He finally presents the elevation of an air parcel that he illustrates describing the behavior of clouds.NEWLINENEWLINEChapter 8 starts with the description of the impact of CO\(_{2}\) emissions on climate change. It is mainly devoted to the study of heating pumps, starting with Carnot heating pumps and with Carnot power heating machines. The author analyzes the principle of a heating pump and the chapter ends with the description of refrigerating systems.NEWLINENEWLINEChapter 9 presents the notion of entropy starting with the case of incompressible materials. Then the author presents the difference of entropy between two states in terms of the heat and of the temperature. Then he computes the difference of entropy between two states in the case of ideal gases and he illustrates these expressions with different examples.NEWLINENEWLINEChapter 10 moves to the second principle of thermodynamics. It starts with examples of irreversible processes. Then the author writes the entropy balance for closed systems. He considers the maximum of entropy for an isolated system and he introduces the notions of free entropy and of free enthalpy.\ The chapter goes on with many examples and ends with the entropy balance for open systems.NEWLINENEWLINEChapter 11 is devoted to the microscopic analysis of entropy. The author starts presenting the notion of irreversibility linked to the dispersion of energy. He then moves to concepts of statistical mechanics and to the Boltzmann-Einstein model and to the connection with thermodynamics.NEWLINENEWLINEChapter 12 briefly presents the power plant processes starting with a short historical presentation then with the description of the Clausius-Rankine process.NEWLINENEWLINEChapter 13 is devoted to the presentation of the heat transfer mechanisms: conduction with Fourier's law, radiation through Planck's and Stefan-Boltzmann laws and convection.NEWLINENEWLINEThe final Chapter 14 describes the non-stationary convection starting with the 1D heat equation. The author gives examples from daily life. He presents the expressions of the solution in series form or using the \(erf\) function.NEWLINENEWLINEThe book ends with tables gathering the characteristics of different materials or the main formulas.NEWLINENEWLINEThroughout the whole book, the author does not present so many computations based on the different notions he introduces. He prefers to insist on illustrations with many examples mainly occurring in the daily life or in natural processes.