Thermodynamics Project
Lola Maroun
Thermodynamics deals with the concepts of heat and temperature and the inter-conversion of heat and other forms of energy. The four laws of thermodynamics govern the behaviour of these quantities and provide a quantitative description. William Thomson, in 1749, coined the term thermodynamics.
To be specific, it explains how thermal energy is converted to or from other forms of energy and how matter is affected by this process. Thermal energy is the energy that comes from heat. This heat is generated by the movement of tiny particles within an object, and the faster these particles move, the more heat is generated.
Thermodynamics is not concerned about how and at what rate these energy transformations are carried out. It is based on the initial and final states undergoing the change. It should also be noted that Thermodynamics is a macroscopic science. This means that it deals with the bulk system and does not deal with the molecular constitution of matter.
The distinction between mechanics and thermodynamics is worth noting. In mechanics, we solely concentrate on the motion of particles or bodies under the action of forces and torques. On the other hand, thermodynamics is not concerned with the motion of the system as a whole. It is only concerned with the internal macroscopic state of the body.
In classical thermodynamics, the behaviour of matter is analysed with a macroscopic approach. Units such as temperature and pressure are taken into consideration, which helps the individuals calculate other properties and predict the characteristics of the matter undergoing the process.
In statistical thermodynamics, every molecule is under the spotlight, i.e. the properties of every molecule and how they interact are taken into consideration to characterise the behaviour of a group of molecules.
Thermodynamics has its own unique vocabulary associated with it. A good understanding of the basic concepts forms a sound understanding of various topics discussed in thermodynamics preventing possible misunderstandings.
A thermodynamic system is a specific portion of matter with a definite boundary on which our attention is focused. The system boundary may be real or imaginary, fixed or deformable.
There are three types of systems:
A thermodynamic cycle is a process or a combination of processes conducted such that the initial and final states of the system are the same. A thermodynamic cycle is also known as cyclic operation or cyclic processes.
Thermodynamic potentials are quantitative measures of the stored energy in a system. Potentials measure the energy changes in a system as they evolve from the initial state to the final state. Different potentials are used based on the system constraints, such as temperature and pressure.
Thermodynamics laws define the fundamental physical quantities like energy, temperature and entropy that characterize thermodynamic systems at thermal equilibrium. These thermodynamics laws represent how these quantities behave under various circumstances.
Consider two cups A and B, with boiling water. When a thermometer is placed in cup A, it gets warmed up by the water until it reads 100 C. When it reads 100 C, we say that the thermometer is in equilibrium with cup A. When we move the thermometer to cup B to read the temperature, it continues to read 100 C. The thermometer is also in equilibrium with cup B. By keeping in mind the zeroth law of thermodynamics, we can conclude that cup A and cup B are in equilibrium with each other.
If a room is not tidied or cleaned, it invariably becomes more messy and disorderly with time. When the room is cleaned, its entropy decreases, but the effort to clean it has resulted in increased entropy outside the room exceeding the entropy lost.
This activity is a project designed to introduce undergraduate chemical engineering students to chemical engineering thermodynamics in the context of MATLAB. The project requires students to learn concepts they will encounter in their thermodynamics courses, such as the first law of thermodynamics and applying it to a system to perform an energy balance, the difference between state and path functions, and the refrigeration cycle and the role that condensers, heat exchangers, expansion valves, evaporators, and compressors play in it.
As stated in the project goals, this should be an assignment that introduces students to chemical engineering thermodynamics. As such, we require that students solve the problem by hand prior to coding in MATLAB in order to ensure that they have a solid foundation in the concepts that the project requires.
After students have mastered the thermodynamics concepts for the project, they can begin coding their solutions in MATLAB.
The materials provided are listed below:
- Project instructions
- Excel data file
- Rubrics
- Solutions zip file -- educator-only file HideSolutions zip file
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After attending a lecture with the brilliant professor Ricardo Viana Vargas, Ph.D. in my course "Effective Projects: Assertiveness and Efficiency" at PUCRS, I felt compelled to write about a topic that caught my attention: Entropy. Yes, the same entropy you swore you'd forget after your thermodynamics class. You might wonder, "What does this have to do with project management?" The answer is, more than you might think.
Entropy measures the level of disorder in a system. According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, entropy tends to increase, driving systems towards a state of maximum disorder. In simpler terms, things naturally fall apart unless energy is invested to maintain or improve them.
Ricardo Viana Vargas, Ph.D. masterfully connected the concept of entropy to everyday life during our lecture. Take house cleaning as an example. Do you intentionally dirty your house because someone will clean it tomorrow? No. Dirt and disorder appear naturally over time, a process driven by entropy. To tackle this, one must invest energy - whether is one's time, cleaning products, or even investing on hiring a professional cleaner.
Moreover, Ricardo points out that: "Projects don't fail because someone sabotages them or because you force them to fail." Stakeholders may fall ill, suppliers might not deliver on time, or team members could quit. These are all entropic forces at play, pushing the project towards a state of disorder.
Right, now that you know what entropy is about, I just want to make a shout out to you Ricardo Viana Vargas, Ph.D. for drawing this remarkable parallel, providing us a unique lens through project management point of view. It reminds us that disorder is not an anomaly (or something to avoid) but a natural state towards which systems gravitate. Success, therefore, is not a matter of luck but of continuous, conscious effort. In the battle against entropy, energy is your greatest ally.
This project is a collection of datasets of the alanine dipeptide (more specifically, terminally-blocked alanine peptide) in explicit solvent. These datasets cover both thermodynamic simulations (parallel tempering) and kinetic simulations (Hamiltonian dynamics trajectories) useful for testing algorithms analyzing the thermodynamics and kinetics of biomolecular systems. This model system has already been used in several research papers.
SimTK is maintained through Grant R01GM124443 01A1 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It was initially developed as part of the Simbios project funded by the NIH as part of the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research, Grant U54 GM072970.
This project addresses processing problems involving a wide spectrum of unit operations and propose solutions whose utility is enhanced by thermodynamic modeling. Any data missing from the thermodynamic model is addressed by examining literature and conducting experiments to measure or estimate this data. Simulation and experimental results are provided to collaborators, the rest of CMI, and the greater scientific community, via publications and external presentations. All generated thermochemical data is then collated into an inclusive databank readily accessible to all CMI participants.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Rolf Landauer, Charlie Bennett and collaborators performed the first, pioneering analysis of the fundamental thermodynamic costs involved in bit erasure, perhaps the simplest example of a computation. Unfortunately, their physics was semi-formal, initially with no equations at all. This is because when they did their work, nonequilibrium statistical physics was in its infancy, and so they simply did not have the tools for a formal analysis of the thermodynamics of computation.
Moreover, only a trivially small portion of computer science theory (CS) is concerned with the number of erasure operations needed to perform a given computation. At its core, much of CS is concerned with unavoidable resource / time tradeoffs in running computation. That is the basis of all computational complexity theory, many approaches to characterizing the algorithmic power of different kinds of computers, etc.
As a result, the time is ripe to pursue a new field of science and engineering: a modern thermodynamics of computation. This would combine the resource/time tradeoffs of concern in conventional CS with the thermodynamic tradeoffs in computation that are now being revealed. In this way we should be able to develop the tools necessary both for analyzing thermodynamic costs in biological systems and for engineering next-generation computers.
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