The Thermodynamics of Energy Conservation

Abstract

This paper is part of a session dealing with the fundamentals of energy conservation. The paper is intended to be a tutorial for engineers who have not been trained in thermodynamics, or have not practiced recently and need some refresher material. The first and second laws of thermodynamics will be reviewed in this paper from the context of how they relate to energy conservation. Some simple examples of how they are used to analyze energy conservation systems will be presented. The use of device efficiencies will be explained. Turbine expansions and other commonly encountered calculations will be demonstrated.