Fundamentals of Thermodynamics and Applications

Thermodynamics is the much abused slave of many masters ¿ physicists who love the totally impractical Carnot process, ¿ mechanical engineers who design power stations and refrigerators, ¿ chemists who are successfully synthesizing ammonia and are puzzled by photosynthesis, ¿ meteorologists who calculate cloud bases and predict föhn, boraccia and scirocco, ¿ physico-chemists who vulcanize rubber and build fuel cells, ¿ chemical engineers who rectify natural gas and distil f- mented potato juice, ¿ metallurgists who improve steels and harden surfaces, ¿ - trition counselors who recommend a proper intake of calories, ¿ mechanics who adjust heat exchangers, ¿ architects who construe ¿ and often misconstrue ¿ ch- neys, ¿ biologists who marvel at the height of trees, ¿ air conditioning engineers who design saunas and the ventilation of air plane cabins, ¿ rocket engineers who create supersonic flows, et cetera. Not all of these professional groups need the full depth and breadth of ther- dynamics. For some it is enough to consider a well-stirred tank, for others a s- tionary nozzle flow is essential, and yet others are well-served with the partial d- ferential equation of heat conduction. It is therefore natural that thermodynamics is prone to mutilation; different group-specific meta-thermodynamics¿ have emerged which serve the interest of the groups under most circumstances and leave out aspects that are not often needed in their fields.