Introduction to Thermal and Fluids Engineering

By Deborah A. Kaminski and Michael K. Jensen

Book Overview

An integrated approach: Thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer are presented as a unified body of knowledge.. Examples and problems are used to illustrate the integration of the three disciplines in practice. Benefit: The integrated approach builds a firm understanding of the interconnection among the 3 topic areas.. ? Common notation used throughout text:? to reinforce the connectedness of the topics, and to minimize student confusion, a common notation is introduced and used throughout the text.??? Flexibility: The text is designed to support a wide variety of syllabi and course structures.? After Chapters 2, 3, and 4, there are multiple paths through the book depending on the curricular needs. Benefit: Instructors are able to customize the text to their specific curricular needs. ? Example Problems & End-of Chapter Exercises: Examples and problems are used to illustrate the integration of the three disciplines in practice. The text features a rich collection of example problems (over 150) and end-of-chapter exercises (over 850).? The problems range from the simple (to illustrate one concept or point) to the complex (to show the need for integration, synthesis of topics and tools, and the use of a logical problem solution approach).? Benefit: Increased student concept comprehension and consistent reinforcement of students? problem solving skills.? The detailed solutions are valuable in demonstrating how to incorporate information from several different disciplines in solving problems ? Familiar, down-to-earth examples: Clear descriptions of physical and fundamental processes that are related to what a student may observe in his/her everyday life are used in many examples. The illustrative examples bring together physical processes, governing equations, and concrete examples of applications of the points being taught. Benefit: students are more easily able to relate to and understand important concepts . ? An emphasis on problem solving:? Students learn by problem solving, and in addition to the wealth of examples and problems throughout the text, assumptions are stated when they are used in the problem solution. Some of the example problems are industrially relevant; these example problems and other practical engineering applications are used throughout the text to provide motivation to the students. Benefit : Students are able to see the problem-solving process in action. In many cases, assumptions are not all known at the start of a problem. During the course of solution, it often becomes apparent that an assumption is needed. Kaminski & Jensen's approach emphasizes this. ? ?Approach? section for each problem: After the problem statement is given and prior to actually solving the problem, the general approach to the problem solution is stated briefly to enable students to see the path the solution will take. Benefit: Provides direction to students who need that extra support. Enables professors to discuss a problem solution before an equation is written, for example. Early introduction to heat transfer: The subject, of major importance to EE majors, is introduced in Ch. 3. Benefit: Allows students to relate the heat term in the First Law of Thermodynamics to fundamental modes of heat transfer and tackle more realistic problems earlier in their engineering education. Property evaluations are not introduced until Chapter 5. Benefit: Many practical topics from fluid mechanics and heat transfer can be taught with minimal emphasis on thermodynamics. (Chapters 5-8 can be omitted without loss of continuity.) This is especially useful if the course is for non-majors. Accessible writing style: Reviewers and students commend the clarity of the writing. In addition, all derivations are written out in detail, without skipping steps. Benefit: The high readability of the text enables students to better understand important concepts.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1118103483
• ISBN13: 9781118103487
• Release Date: November 2011
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 800 Pages
• Weight: 3.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 8.2" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

not bad

Not too bad of a textbook. It's the only thermo class that I need so it's pretty basic. I recommend having a basic fluid mechanics class to understand a few of the concepts in this book, but it's not critical.

Handy Textbook

I studied chemical engineering as an undergraduate over 15 years ago. I am working on a masters degree in thermal fluids engineering. This text was used for a review/ramp course that covered some thermodynamics, some fluid mechanics and some heat transfer. The concept of teaching these subjects in an integrated course with an integrated textbook is new (to me at least). If you don't like this integrated pedagogy, you will likely find many faults with the book. When solving real world engineering problems, I find the most useful skill is to combine knowledge from multiple disciplines and integrate them. A lot of my undergraduate curriculum went into heavy derivations and details that have not been very useful in my career as an engineer. However, learning the key concepts from each subject, and then combining to solve interdisciplinary problems is very valuable to me. The trade-offs for this text and for this integrated approach is the sacrifice of detail and rigor. The sections on thermodynamics were spot-on for the key concepts that mechanical engineers would need, but would be totally inadequate for chemical engineers (no mention of fugacity or activity, no development of equations of state, no coverage of chemical potential, etc.) The sections on fluid mechanics were practical and handy for actually solving flow in conduits and external flow problems; they also provided good physical descriptions of the phenonmena, but they were clearly lacking in rigor in development and derivation. Also, no coverage of dimensional analysis and similarity, turbomachinary nor compressible flow were included. That would be appalling to a fluids expert, but still enough of the general concepts were conveyed to facilitate learning those other areas from other sources. The heat transfer sections were very good at convering a lot of subjects with minimal pages. In the few chapters on HT, I can find almost all of the steady state conduction, transient conduction, convection, correlations for Nusselt numbers, and radiation that are covered in a 900 page text dedicated to HT alone. All in all this is a very efficient text. I found this textbook to be very good at it's intended purpose. However, for more complete coverage of any of the three topics dedicated textbooks would be needed. Depending on your needs and your curriculum this book could be ideal or just frustrating. By the way, I found it very handy to have all the appendices that contain the thermophysical properites for solids, liquids and gases in one book. I use the tables quite frequently for other classes and work related calculations.

very pleased

was very pleased with this purchase, the book arrived on time and was in great condition. will definitely order through this seller again