Thermodynamics: An Engineering Approach

Citation

Çengel, Y. A., Boles, M. A., & Kanoğlu, M. (2024). Thermodynamics: An Engineering Approach (10th ed., international student edition). McGraw-Hill.

Chapter Summary

The tenth edition has 18 chapters. The publisher describes the book as student friendly and self-instructive, built on illustrations, examples and real-world applications, with the authors' philosophy that the best way to learn is by practice. The catalogue lists chapter titles, and the publisher's notes on the edition add specific points, which are recorded under the chapters they affect.

Chapters 1–2: Introduction and Basic Concepts; Energy, Energy Transfer, and General Energy Analysis

The opening chapters set out the basic vocabulary and then introduce energy and its transfer as the basis for a general energy analysis. The edition notes say that the 2018 redefinitions of the kilogram, mole, ampere and kelvin are incorporated in these two chapters.

Chapter 3: Properties of Pure Substances

The chapter on the properties of pure substances comes before the energy analysis of closed systems and control volumes.

Chapters 4–5: Energy Analysis of Closed Systems; Mass and Energy Analysis of Control Volumes

The first law is applied first to closed systems, then to control volumes with mass and energy analysed together.

Chapters 6–8: The Second Law of Thermodynamics; Entropy; Entropy Analysis

The second law is followed by two entropy chapters. According to the publisher, the lengthy entropy chapter of the ninth edition was split in this edition into Chapter 7, which covers the fundamentals of entropy, and Chapter 8, which covers its engineering application and the entropy balance, to give instructors more flexibility in selective coverage. In Chapter 7 the relative pressure and relative specific volume functions for ideal-gas isentropic processes are removed, and a new entropy function, s+, is defined and tabulated in the air tables instead; it allows entropy changes of ideal gases with variable specific heats to be found when specific volume rather than pressure is given.

Chapter 9: Exergy

The notes say the exergy chapter now uses the symbols x_nonflow and x_flow for the specific exergies of stationary masses and flowing fluids, keeping x, X and Ẋ parallel to e, E and Ė for energy. The chapter has been enlarged with cryogenic applications, such as liquefied natural gas at about −160 °C. The energy balance now writes the net energy transfer as Q_net,in + W_net,in, where a negative value means output.

Chapters 10–12: Gas Power Cycles; Vapor and Combined Power Cycles; Refrigeration Cycles

Three chapters cover the power and refrigeration cycles: gas power cycles, vapor and combined power cycles, and refrigeration cycles.

Chapters 13–15: Thermodynamic Property Relations; Gas Mixtures; Gas-Vapor Mixtures and Air-Conditioning

These chapters treat property relations, mixtures of gases and mixtures of gases with vapor, including air-conditioning.

Chapters 16–18: Chemical Reactions; Chemical and Phase Equilibrium; Compressible Flow

The last three chapters cover chemical reactions, chemical and phase equilibrium, and compressible flow.

Key Concepts

The explanations below are general definitions of the concepts the contents and the edition notes name.

Chapters 1–5: Basic Concepts, Energy, Properties and the First Law

• Energy analysis: the accounting of energy transfers by heat and work, applied to closed systems and to control volumes.
• Pure substance: a substance of fixed chemical composition whose properties are tabulated for use in calculations.
• Control volume: a region through which mass flows, analysed with mass and energy balances.

Chapters 6–9: Second Law, Entropy and Exergy

• Second law of thermodynamics: the law that limits the direction of processes and the efficiency of cycles.
• Entropy and the s+ function: the property introduced in Chapter 7, with a new function for variable-specific-heat ideal gases.
• Exergy: the work potential of a system relative to its surroundings, with the edition's revised notation.

Chapters 10–18: Cycles, Relations, Mixtures, Reactions, Equilibrium and Compressible Flow

• Gas, vapor and refrigeration cycles: the idealized cycles used to analyse engines, power plants and refrigerators.
• Gas-vapor mixtures: mixtures such as moist air, tied to air-conditioning.
• Chemical and phase equilibrium: conditions for a system not to change spontaneously.
• Compressible flow: the flow of gases at speeds where density change matters.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A deliberately accessible style. The publisher describes the book as student friendly, self-instructive and easy to read even for challenging topics, with attractive illustrations, examples and real-world applications.
• Built-in self-checks. The notable new feature of the tenth edition is about 400 multiple-choice "Check Your Understanding" questions at the end of most sections, aimed at concepts and, where numbers appear, answerable without a calculator.
• Wide scope in one volume. Eighteen chapters take a reader from basic concepts to chemical and phase equilibrium and compressible flow, so one book can support an introductory course and a follow-on course.
• Visible edition changes. The split of the entropy material in two chapters, the s+ function, the revised exergy notation and the SI redefinitions show that the edition changed its organization and notation, not only its problems.

Limitations

• Revisions affect notation and cross-references. Anyone using a ninth-edition study guide or solution notes must adjust to the new entropy chapter numbering, the replacement of the relative-pressure and relative-volume functions with s+, the changed exergy symbols and the new energy-balance sign convention.
• Size. The paperback runs to nearly 1,000 pages by retailer listings, and no course can use every chapter; instructors choose among the later chapters.
• No dedicated heat transfer chapter. The 18 chapter titles cover energy transfer in general but not heat transfer as a subject, so a course that continues into heat transfer needs a separate text; the course list includes several.

Where It Fits in the Course

Çengel, Boles and Kanoğlu is a main text for the standard engineering thermodynamics course. Borgnakke and Sonntag's Fundamentals of Thermodynamics is the closest alternative; its international adaptation has 13 chapters, runs from properties through the first and second laws to exergy, cycles, mixtures, relations and chemical reactions, and does not have the equilibrium and compressible-flow chapters that appear here. Moran, Shapiro, Boettner and Bailey's Fundamentals of Engineering Thermodynamics is another systematic main text, while Turns and Pauley's Thermodynamics: Concepts and Applications is a gentler, example-driven introduction.

Peter Atkins's The Laws of Thermodynamics: A Very Short Introduction offers a compact conceptual overview of the four laws before or alongside the course. Physics-oriented books on the same list, such as Schroeder's An Introduction to Thermal Physics, define entropy through the counting of microstates and can complement the engineering view. Bejan's Advanced Engineering Thermodynamics is the graduate continuation, making exergy and entropy generation design tools.

How to Use This Book

The book is for engineering students taking a first thermodynamics course, and for those who want a readable main text with many worked applications. Calculus and introductory physics are the expected background.

• Core: Chapters 1–9 in order. Use the Check Your Understanding questions after each section before turning to the numerical problems at the end of the chapter.
• Cycles and applications: Chapters 10–12 and 15 for power, refrigeration and air-conditioning courses.
• Advanced or optional: Chapters 13, 14, 16, 17 and 18 for property relations, mixtures, chemical reactions, equilibrium and compressible flow, depending on the syllabus.

If you hold an older edition, expect different numbering in the entropy chapters and different air-table columns.