Thermal Engineering Studies with Excel, Mathcad and Internet

Book excerpt: This book provides the fundamentals of the application of mathematical methods, modern computational tools (Excel, Mathcad, SMath, etc.), and the Internet to solve the typical problems of heat and mass transfer, thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, energy conservation and energy efficiency. Chapters cover the technology for creating and using databases on various properties of working fluids, coolants and thermal materials. All calculation methods are provided with links to online computational pages where data can be inserted and recalculated. It discusses tasks involving the generation of electricity at thermal, nuclear, gas turbine and combined-cycle power plants, as well as processes of co- and trigeneration, conditioning facilities and heat pumps. This text engages students and researchers by using modern calculation tools and the Internet for thermal engineering applications.