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Session 3666

MathCAD Functions for Thermodynamic Analysis of Ideal Gases

Stephen T. McClain Assistant Professor Department of Mechanical Engineering The University of Alabama at Birmingham 1530 3rd Ave. S., BEC 358B Birmingham, AL 35294-4461

Abstract

Data from “The Chemkin Thermodynamic Data Base” were used to generate MathCAD functions for the molar specific enthalpy, internal energy, entropy, specific heat at constant volume, and the specific heat at constant pressure for twelve chemical species of the carbon- hydrogen-oxygen-nitrogen system. The functions for oxygen and nitrogen were then used to generate ideal gas functions for air, including functions for relative pressure and relative volume. The MathCAD functions were made available for students in ME 242 Thermodynamics II and in ME 448/548 Internal Combustion Engines. The ideal gas functions were generated to ease the complication of using tabulated data for ideal gas properties, to allow parametric studies of thermodynamic systems using ideal gases, and to enable the students to generate relative pressure and relative volume functions for substances other than air. The details and usage of the ideal gas MathCAD functions are discussed, and specific examples of their application to problems in thermodynamics and combustion are presented.

Introduction

Teaching with a combination of a textbook and a software package is a contemporary engineering-thermodynamics pedagogy. Many software tools are available for evaluating thermodynamic properties of engineering fluids. Many of these software tools are proprietary packages sold by textbook publishers, such as “Interactive Thermodynamics: IT” [1]. In fact, finding a thermodynamics text that does not come with a software package is difficult. Some textbooks are now built around using a software or web-based internet package [2]. While many educational software packages are available for evaluating thermodynamic properties, evidence that shows that practicing engineers continue to use these thermodynamic-property software packages after entering the workforce is not readily available.

MathCAD, MatLab, and Engineering Equation Solver (EES) are all powerful computational and analytical packages [3,4,5]. Many schools teach and require the use of a computational tool such as MathCAD, MatLab, or EES [6]. From informal conversations with engineers who learned to

Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2005, American Society for Engineering

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McClain, S. (2005, June), Mathcad Functions For Thermodynamic Analysis Of Ideal Gases Paper presented at 2005 Annual Conference, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--14326