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Physical weathering, also called mechanical weathering or disaggregation, is the class of processes that causes the disintegration of rocks without chemical change. Physical weathering involves the breakdown of rocks into smaller fragments through processes such as expansion and contraction, mainly due to temperature changes.
A common example is steam generation in power plants and the associated energy transfer to mechanical motion and the change of states of the water while undergoing this process. Thermal-hydraulics analysis can determine important parameters for reactor design such as plant efficiency and coolability of the system.
In thermal engineering, the logarithmic mean temperature difference (LMTD) is used to determine the temperature driving force for heat transfer in flow systems, most notably in heat exchangers. The LMTD is a logarithmic average of the temperature difference between the hot and cold feeds at each end of the double pipe exchanger.
An example of steady state conduction is the heat flow through walls of a warm house on a cold day—inside the house is maintained at a high temperature and, outside, the temperature stays low, so the transfer of heat per unit time stays near a constant rate determined by the insulation in the wall and the spatial distribution of temperature ...
Conduction is heat transfer through stationary matter by physical contact. (The matter is stationary on a macroscopic scale—we know there is thermal motion of the atoms and molecules at any temperature above absolute zero.) Heat transferred between the electric burner of a stove and the bottom of a pan is transferred by conduction.
A generator converts mechanical energy into electrical energy. [19] A hydroelectric powerplant converts the mechanical energy of water in a storage dam into electrical energy. [20] An internal combustion engine is a heat engine that obtains mechanical energy from chemical energy by burning fuel. From this mechanical energy, the internal ...
where ˙ is the heat transferred per unit time, A is the area of the object, h is the heat transfer coefficient, T is the object's surface temperature, and T f is the fluid temperature. [ 8 ] The convective heat transfer coefficient is dependent upon the physical properties of the fluid and the physical situation.
Thermal engineering may be practiced by mechanical engineers and chemical engineers. One or more of the following disciplines may be involved in solving a particular thermal engineering problem: thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, heat transfer, or mass transfer. One branch of knowledge used frequently in thermal engineering is that of thermofluids.