Teaching Applied Thermodynamics with EES

摘要

Applied Thermodynamics is a graduate course at Kettering University. Undergraduate Thermodynamics serves as the only prerequisite. This course covers the concepts introduced in undergraduate thermodynamics and continues with the coverage of thermodynamic relations, mixtures and solutions, psychrometry, phase and chemical equilibrium, and chemical reactions. These concepts are then applied in detail to various power and refrigeration cycles. Topics such as mole fraction, mass fraction, enthalpy of formation, adiabatic flame temperature and the application of the Second Law to reacting mixtures are covered. Team projects are incorporated into this graduate course. Recent projects included a turbojet engine and a non-ideal regenerative steam power plant. The objective of the first project was to compute component efficiencies and the thrust force for a jet engine. The second project aimed to optimize the thermal efficiency of a non-ideal regenerative steam power plant by varying the feed-water heater pressure. Both projects utilized the Engineering Equation Solver (EES), a general equation solver with built-in functions for thermodynamic and transport properties. This article describes the projects and presents the solution techniques and the computed results. For the jet engine, computed results are based on actual test data obtained in Energy Systems Laboratory at Kettering University.