Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1. OVERVIEW OF HEAT AND MASS TRANSFER

Course Objectives
Be acquainted with the thermodynamics, heat
transfer and their current engineering applications.
Be comfortable with the metric SI commonly used in
engineering.
Develop an intuitive systematic problem-solving
technique.
Understand the basic concepts of mass transfer

OVERVIEW OF THERMAL-FLUID SCIENCES

Thermal-fluid sciences:
The physical sciences
that deal with energy and
the transfer, transport,
and conversion of energy.
Thermal-fluid sciences
are studied under the
subcategories of

thermodynamics

fluid mechanics

heat transfer

The design of many engineering

systems, such as this solar hot
water system, involves thermal-fluid
sciences.

Application Areas of Thermal-Fluid Sciences

Application Areas of Thermal-Fluid Sciences

THERMODYNAMICS

Thermodynamics: The science of

energy.

Energy: The ability to cause changes.

The name thermodynamics stems from

the Greek words therme (heat) and
dynamis (power).

Conservation of energy principle:

During an interaction, energy can change
from one form to another but the total
amount of energy remains constant.

Energy cannot be created or destroyed.

The first law of thermodynamics: An

expression of the conservation of energy
principle.

The first law asserts that energy is a

thermodynamic property.

Energy cannot be created

or destroyed; it can only
change forms (the first law).

The second law of thermodynamics:

It asserts that energy has quality as
well as quantity, and actual processes
occur in the direction of decreasing
quality of energy.

Classical thermodynamics: A
macroscopic approach to the study of
thermodynamics that does not require
a knowledge of the behavior of
individual particles.

Conservation of energy
principle for the human body.

It provides a direct and easy way to the

solution of engineering problems.

Statistical thermodynamics: A
microscopic approach, based on the
average behavior of large groups of
individual particles.
Heat flows in the direction of
decreasing temperature.

FLUID MECHANICS
Fluid mechanics: The science
that deals with the behavior of
fluids at rest (fluid statics) or in
motion (fluid dynamics), and the
interaction of fluids with solids or
other fluids at the boundaries.
Fluid: A substance in the liquid
or gas phase.
A solid can resist an applied
shear stress by deforming,
whereas a fluid deforms
continuously under the influence
of shear stress, no matter how
small.
Fluid mechanics deals with liquids
and gases in motion or at rest.

The normal stress and shear stress at

the surface of a fluid element. For fluids
at rest, the shear stress is zero and
pressure is the only normal stress.

Deformation of a rubber block placed

between two parallel plates under the
influence of a shear force. The shear
stress shown is that on the rubberan
equal but opposite shear stress acts on
the upper plate.
Unlike a liquid, a gas does not form a free surface,
and it expands to fill the entire available space.

HEAT TRANSFER

Heat: The form of energy that can be

transferred from one system to
another as a result of temperature
difference.

Heat Transfer: The science that

deals with the determination of the
rates of such energy transfers and
variation of temperature.

Thermodynamics is concerned with

the amount of heat transfer as a
system undergoes a process from
one equilibrium state to another, and
it gives no indication about how long
the process will take. But in
engineering, we are often interested
in the rate of heat transfer, which is
the topic of the science of heat
transfer.

We are normally interested in how

long it takes for the hot coffee in a
thermos to cool to a certain
temperature, which cannot be
determined from a thermodynamic
analysis alone.

Example: Thermos

Example: PC computer memories

Example: PCBs

Example: Heat sinks

Example: Heat exchanger

Introduction to mass transfer

Mass transfer refers to the movement of a chemical species from a high

concentration region toward a lower concentration region and requires the
presence of two regions at different chemical compositions.

The primary driving force is the pressure difference for fluid flow and the
temperature difference for heat transfer, whereas it is the concentration
difference for mass transfer. Therefore, we do not speak of mass transfer in
a homogeneous medium.

Physical Origins
Both conduction and mass diffusion are transport processes that originate
from molecular activity.

Applications

Evaporation of water into air in a cooling tower

Drying of wood, paper, and textiles
Leakage of helium from the laser of a copying machine
Catalytic oxidation of carbon monoxide and unburnt
hydrocarbons in an automobile catalytic converter
Measurement of humidity using wet and dry thermocouples
Aeration of sewage for biological treatment
Evaporation and condensation in gas-controlled heat pipes
Pollutant transport in air/water
Combustion of pulverized coal in a power plant furnace

Tutorial questions
C1-1. Why is heat transfer a nonequilibrium phenomenon?
Ans. Heat transfer is a non-equilibrium phenomena since in a system that is in
equilibrium there can be no temperature differences and thus no heat flow.
C1-2. Can there be any heat transfer between two bodies that are at the same
temperature but at different pressures?
Ans. There cannot be any heat transfer between two bodies that are at the same
temperature (regardless of pressure) since the driving force for heat transfer
is temperature difference
C1-3. What is mass transfer ?
Ans. Mass transfer refers to the movement of a chemical species from a high
concentration region toward a lower concentration region

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