Essays on Thermodynamics, Architecture and Beauty, is a book that unfolds arguments and designs around the concept of "thermodynamic beauty". This new aesthetic category opens up new and unexpected directions to the architect's work, connecting architecture and thermodynamics without giving up the tectonic tradition. The compendium will be developed through the concepts of Somatisms, Monsters Assemblage, Verticalism and Thermodynamic Materialism, summarizing design strategies, and opening new territories at the scales of building, public space and landscape.
Thermodynamics is fundamental to university and college curricula in chemistry, physics, engineering and many life sciences around the world. It is also notoriously difficult for students to understand, learn and apply. What makes this book different, and special, is the clarity of the text. The writing style is fluid, natural and lucid, and everything is explained in a logical and transparent manner. Thermodynamics is a deep, and important, branch of science, and this book does not make it "easy". But it does make it intelligible. This book introduces a new, 'Fourth Law' of Thermodynamics' based on the notion of Gibbs free energy, which underpins almost every application of thermodynamics and which the authors claim is worthy of recognition as a 'law'. The last four chapters bring thermodynamics into the twenty-first century, dealing with bioenergetics (how living systems capture and use free energy), macromolecule assembly (how proteins fold), and macromolecular aggregation (how, for example, virus capsids assemble). This is of great current relevance to students of biochemistry, biochemical engineering and pharmacy, and is covered in very few other texts on thermodynamics. The book also contains many novel and effective examples, such as the explanation of why friction is irreversible, the proof of the depression of the freezing point, and the explanation of the biochemical standard state.
Laurence Belfiore’s unique treatment meshes two mainstream subject areas in chemical engineering: transport phenomena and chemical reactor design. Expressly intended as an extension of Bird, Stewart, and Lightfoot’s classic Transport Phenomena, and Froment and Bischoff’s Chemical Reactor Analysis and Design, Second Edition, Belfiore’s unprecedented text explores the synthesis of these two disciplines in a manner the upper undergraduate or graduate reader can readily grasp. Transport Phenomena for Chemical Reactor Design approaches the design of chemical reactors from microscopic heat and mass transfer principles. It includes simultaneous consideration of kinetics and heat transfer, both critical to the performance of real chemical reactors. Complementary topics in transport phenomena and thermodynamics that provide support for chemical reactor analysis are covered, including: Fluid dynamics in the creeping and potential flow regimes around solid spheres and gas bubbles The corresponding mass transfer problems that employ velocity profiles, derived in the book’s fluid dynamics chapter, to calculate interphase heat and mass transfer coefficients Heat capacities of ideal gases via statistical thermodynamics to calculate Prandtl numbers Thermodynamic stability criteria for homogeneous mixtures that reveal that binary molecular diffusion coefficients must be positive In addition to its comprehensive treatment, the text also contains 484 problems and ninety-six detailed solutions to assist in the exploration of the subject. Graduate and advanced undergraduate chemical engineering students, professors, and researchers will appreciate the vision, innovation, and practical application of Laurence Belfiore’s Transport Phenomena for Chemical Reactor Design.
This textbook covers basic principles of equilibrium behavior for systems of interest to chemical engineering, including elementary microscopic concepts. A strong emphasis is placed on fundamentals: energy conservation in open and closed systems (first law), temperature, entropy and reversibility (second law), fundamental equations, and criteria for equilibrium and stability. These concepts are then applied to the analysis of energy conversion processes, mixing, phase equilibria, and chemical reactions.
This introductory textbook for standard undergraduate courses in thermodynamics has been completely rewritten to explore a greater number of topics, more clearly and concisely. Starting with an overview of important quantum behaviours, the book teaches students how to calculate probabilities in order to provide a firm foundation for later chapters. It introduces the ideas of classical thermodynamics and explores them both in general and as they are applied to specific processes and interactions. The remainder of the book deals with statistical mechanics. Each topic ends with a boxed summary of ideas and results, and every chapter contains numerous homework problems, covering a broad range of difficulties. Answers are given to odd-numbered problems, and solutions to even-numbered problems are available to instructors at www.cambridge.org/9781107694927.
Encompassing both practical applications and recent research developments, this book takes the reader from fundamental physics, through cutting-edge new designs of ejectors for refrigeration. The authors’ unique vision marries successful design, system optimization, and operation experience with insights on the application of cutting-edge Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models. This robust treatment leads the way forward in developing improved ejector technologies. The book covers ejectors used for heat powered refrigeration and for expansion work recovery in compression refrigerators, with special emphasis on two-phase flows of “natural” fluids within the ejector, i.e. steam and carbon dioxide. It features worked examples, detailed research results, and analysis tools.