Bridging the Entropy Chasm

Typically a Thermodynamics course spend at least half of its allotted teaching schedule introducing the first law in its various guises followed by the more mysterious property entropy and its convoluted ‘birth’ from Carnot engine analyses. The author describes a ‘catch all’ approach that first describes the ‘accounting’ techniques used not only for the first law (energy) and the second law (entropy) but also continuity, momentum etc. This is done with non thermofluid examples not typically associated with these courses but more aligned with a student’s own day to day experiences. Once this accounting framework is in place then the physical properties of energy and entropy are introduced and used within the previously described framework to allow students to confidently tackle a myriad of thermofluid problems. The author is particularly pleased with the explanation of entropy which he believes allows a truer appreciation of the property not normally presented in traditional texts. Overall the approach allows the theory of a thermofluids course to be undertaken much more rapidly than many conventional courses. The formulations are greatly reduced and their generality is increased significantly. Ultimately this allows more time in a course for the practice of application of these tools.