>be me >be chemical engineering undergrad >taking introductory

>>7745382
http://4chan-science.wikia.com/wiki/Mechanical_and_Aerospace_Engineering#Thermodynamics
http://4chan-science.wikia.com/wiki/Chemical_Engineering#Chemical_Thermodynamics
http://4chan-science.wikia.com/wiki/Chemical_Engineering#Transport_Phenomena

>>7745384
thanks m8. I apologize for not knowing the ins and outs of this place, only been here a couple of times.

Undergrad chemical engineering here. I recommend the following books:

For thermodynamics:

Engineering and Chemical Thermodynamics by Milo D. Koretsky
Introduction to Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics by J. M. Smith

For transport phenomena:

Transport Phenomena by R. Byron Bird

Try the last editions, but the old ones must be fine too.

File: 1433727220162.jpg (34KB, 304x288px) Image search: [Google]

34KB, 304x288px

>>7745448
thanks man! This is great

>>7745448
Also Bird is the Holy Grail of transport phenomena, but, depending on how the discipline is taught at your university, it must also be good check books about heat and mass transfer and fluid mechanics (momentum transfer).

I recommend these:

Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer by Frank P. Incropera.

Introduction to Fluid Mechanics by Robert W. Fox.

Despite the book's name, Incropera is mostly about Heat Transfer, only exploring similarities between heat and mass transfer. Unfortunately, I don't know any good book only about mass transfer, but Bird should do the trick.

And Fox is not as rigorous as Bird in some details, but I think it is a little bit more didatic.

>>7745804
do you happen to know any lecture/video sites I could use to supplement reading?

>>7745382
I TA Chemical Thermodynamics which is the second component to a year long chemical thermodynamics course in our programme. This post is mostly aimed at more advanced classes, but applies to your first exposure as well.

The most common advice I give to students what should be the most obvious. Read. The. Damn. Textbook.

Taking shortcuts in understanding and using your (usually strong) mathematical intuition doesn't work this time. What I mean by this is most engineering students in their freshman and sophomore courses found that the exam questions by their nature have zero degrees of freedom questions which allows you to solve problems on intuition without in-depth understanding.

Students try this in chem thermo because they quickly become frustrated at not understanding the more complex concepts of chemical solutions theory. They then try to use their understand of easier, basic thermodynamic concepts with earlier tricks. This doesn't work because chem thermo doesn't have zero degree of freedom problems - not even numerically defined problems do.

You're probably going to use Smith, Ness, and Abbott (and if not you should get it anyway, it's the gold standard) and despite the title it's not really written as an introductory text beyond the first 10 chapters.

The first few chapters are really easy basic thermodynamics, you've done most of it in gen chemistry. Chapter 3 you need to focus, it's deceptively simple, but don't skimp over anything, you will definitely be turning back here several times finding you don't truly understand it which fine it's exactly what you need to do. 7-10 is more easy easy material it's closer to what other engineers do in thermo. The most important chapters to understand is 6, 11 and 12.

[cont.]

>>7745954
>You're probably going to use Smith, Ness, and Abbott
No. The required textbook is Elliott and Lira, Introductory Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics.

>>7745954
It's important to understand the place chem. thermo has in science and engineering.

Statistical Mechanics connects the theories of Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Chemistry to Thermodynamics. Chemical Solutions Thermodynamics links these to complex real world phenomena.

You will generally find that all theoretical models are utter shit at representing anything more than simplest of processes to any reasonable degree of accuracy. It is important to understand the context of this failure doesn't lie in the fundamental theory and understanding, but in the mathematical complexity of these processes which requires new -less perfect, but accurate and practical- theories which in a sense are developed due to current computational limits. That is why most models in chem sol thermo represent deviations (perturbations) from the ideal models.


Also another common intuitive issue is with the second law, especially because lecturers usually introduce it through the Statistical Mechanics derivation of a spreading gas. Entropy doesn't drive shit. Gibbs free energy does. Energy doesn't always "spread" when a system can for example assume a lower Gibbs energy by freezing. The most important equation in our discipline is the differential form of Gibbs free energy definition
[math]G = H - TS[/math]
in differential form:
[math]dG = V dP - S dT + \sum^n_{i=1} \mu_i d N_i [/math]

Clearly the equilibrium is driven in COMPETITION between assuming the lowest enthalpy and maximizing entropy - nothing the interplay of temperature in both terms.

Everything is drive by this equation from polymer glass temperatures to multi-component reaction-diffusion systems.

A great property of the Gibbs energy variable is that models such as equation of state models can provide functionals that define the Gibbs free energy of a system by requiring only temperature, pressure and composition measurements. The Gibbs generating function can then be used to calculate all other variables.

>>7745966
Never read it before. Looks very promising from the TOC though.

I recommend you get at least the e-book of SvA too. You will find that many research papers and design reports in Chemical Engineering reference it.

>>7746009
thanks m8! I really appreciate all the help.