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The week ahead

The week ahead
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During the 1st and 2nd weeks of thermodynamics in energy engineering course, we will discuss on the first law and its application to real problems. In these first week videos, we are mainly talking about the first law of thermodynamics and important physical quantities defined by the first law, such as internal energy, enthalpy and heat capacities. The first law is the energy principle. It states that the energy is conserved, but it can change its form. We can see the first laws in our lives every day. Your car is powered by fuel. What does that mean? When the engine burns fuel, it converts the chemical energy stored in the fuel into the mechanical work that drives the car and heat.
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The total energy initially stored in the fuels is the same with the sum of mechanical work and the heat. So the total energy is conserved, however, the form of energy changed from chemical energy to mechanical work and heat. That’s exactly the first law. This week, we are going to derive the equations describing the 1st law for closed and open systems. The concept of heat capacities and their physical meaning are extensively discussed also.

Welcome to Week 1 of the course. During this first week, we introduce the first law of thermodynamics and derive the equations describing the first law.

To demonstrate the usefulness of these equations and apply them to calculate actual situations, the concept of heat capacities and their physical meaning are also discussed.

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Thermodynamics in Energy Engineering

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FutureLearn - Learning For Life

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