Thermofluids (PDT102/3): Electronic Books

The book aimes at bringing together the current knowledge of academicians, researchers and scholars from all over the world on all aspects of Thermodynamics, Fluid Mechanics, Heat Transfer and Thermal Engineering. In addition to the fundamentals of thermal phenomena and traditional thermal applications, the contributions also address the emerging domains of thermal transport in fishery, building nano-materials, bio-systems, microsystems, power generation, and energy conversion devices.

Thermofluids, while a relatively modern term, is applied to the well-established field of thermal sciences, which is comprised of various intertwined disciplines. Thus mass, momentum, and heat transfer constitute the fundamentals of th- mofluids. This book discusses thermofluids in the context of thermodynamics, single- and two-phase flow, as well as heat transfer associated with single- and two-phase flows. Traditionally, the field of thermal sciences is taught in univer- ties by requiring students to study engineering thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer, in that order. In graduate school, these topics are discussed at more advanced levels. In recent years, however, there have been attempts to in- grate these topics through a unified approach. This approach makes sense as thermal design of widely varied systems ranging from hair dryers to semicond- tor chips to jet engines to nuclear power plants is based on the conservation eq- tions of mass, momentum, angular momentum, energy, and the second law of thermodynamics. While integrating these topics has recently gained popularity, it is hardly a new approach. For example, Bird, Stewart, and Lightfoot in Transport Phenomena, Rohsenow and Choi in Heat, Mass, and Momentum Transfer, El- Wakil, in Nuclear Heat Transport, and Todreas and Kazimi in Nuclear Systems have pursued a similar approach. These books, however, have been designed for advanced graduate level courses. More recently, undergraduate books using an - tegral approach are appearing.

Particle Physics and High Energy Physics have stagnated since the early 1970s. Now, the underlying principle of reductionism -- so sacred to twentieth-century physics -- is itself being questioned. This book examines these tumultuous developments that are leading to a paradigm shift and a new horizon for Physics.Presenting the new paradigm in fuzzy spacetime, this book is based on some 100 papers published in peer-reviewed journals including Foundations of Physics, Nuovo Cimento and The International Journal of Modern Physics (A&E), as well as two recently published books, The Chaotic Universe (Nova Science, New York) and The Universe of Fluctuations (Springer). The work had predicted correctly in advance epoch-turning observations, for example, that the Universe is accelerating with a small cosmological constant driven by dark energy when the prevalent line of thinking was the exact opposite. Similarly, the prediction of a minimum thermodynamic residual energy in the Universe has also been realized more recently. Further to a unified description of gravitation and electromagnetism via fluctuations, several other features are presented in complete agreement with experiments, in sharp contrast to the present ideas which are neither verifiable nor disprovable.

Thermodynamics was created in the ?rst half of the 19th century as a theory designed to explain the functioning of heat engines converting heat into mechanical work. In the course of time, while the scope of research in this ?eld was being extended to a wider and wider class of energy transformations, thermodynamics came to be considered as a general theory of machines identi?ed with energy transducers. Imp- tant progress in biochemistry in the ?rst half of the 20th century, and in molecular biology in the second half, made it possible to think of treating even living organisms as machines, at least on the subcellular level. However, success in applying thermodynamics to elucidate the phenomenon of life has been rather mitigated. Two reasons seem to be responsible for this unsatisfactory s- uation. Nineteenth century thermodynamics dealt only with simple (homogeneous) systems in complete equilibrium. Although during the 20th century a nonequilibrium thermodynamics was developed, sta- ing with the Onsager theory of linear response and ending with the Prigogine nonlinear theory of dissipative structures, these theories still concern the originally homogeneous systems. Because living organisms are complex systems with a historically frozen spatial and functional structure, a thermodynamics of both nonequilibrium and complex s- tems is needed for their description. The ?rst goal of the present book is to formulate the foundations of such a thermodynamics.