Paper Authors

Abstract

NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract

Session 1520

Thermograf, a didactic tool for teaching and learning thermodynamics

José A. Turégano, Maria C. Velasco, Tomás Gómez jat@posta.unizar.es/cvelasco@posta.unizar.es/tgomez@posta.unizar.es Dept. of Mechanical Engineering University of Zaragoza, Spain

Abstract

The present paper gives a description of Thermograf, a tool that has been designed for teaching and learning thermodynamics using a graphical interface. Thermograf is a didactic tool that provides a learning environment designed for working with graphical analysis. It covers all of the most important topics in a basic Engineering Thermodynamics course, and works with a cognitive base to promote a meaningful learning.

Thermograf can be used in different situations, such as in classroom presentations, for self- learning activity and for solving a set of teacher’s proposed exercises. The configuration of the screen shows relevant information about processes or cycles, allowing its very easy modification, so that it is possible to analyze energy, exergy, entropy balances, and Q and W calculations with a wide assortment of different substances and some other types of values (enthalpy, specific heats, etc.).

The manipulation of every object on the screen is very simple and powerful, so the student is able to build and analyze every change in a cycle, even in the very complicated ones, in real time and getting quick answer for any change on the screen. Besides, the tool has some specific resources for self-evaluation on some of the most important concepts of the matter. Moreover, this software program has some particular resources for self-evaluation regarding some of the most important concepts of the subject.

I. Introduction

The use of a specialized software as a didactic tool is common in almost every topic of engineering courses. This situation does not differ much when thermodynamics is considered. Generally, the most sophisticated software available is modeled to perform design options for

Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright  2001, American Society for Engineering Education

• Citation

• Format
  • APA
  • APA - LaTeX bibitem
  • MLA
  • MLA - LaTeX bibitem
  • Bibtex
  • EndNote - RIS

Gómez, T., & Velasco, M., & Turégano, J. (2001, June), Thermograf, A Didactic Tool For Teaching Paper presented at 2001 Annual Conference, Albuquerque, New Mexico. 10.18260/1-2--9901