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The second law of thermodynamics is a physical law based on universal empirical observation concerning heat and energy interconversions.A simple statement of the law is that heat always flows spontaneously from hotter to colder regions of matter (or 'downhill' in terms of the temperature gradient).
The first law of thermodynamics is a version of the law of conservation of energy, adapted for thermodynamic processes. In general, the conservation law states that the total energy of an isolated system is constant; energy can be transformed from one form to another, but can be neither created nor destroyed.
In thermodynamics, dissipation is the result of an irreversible process that affects a thermodynamic system. In a dissipative process, energy (internal, bulk flow kinetic, or system potential) transforms from an initial form to a final form, where the capacity of the final form to do thermodynamic work is less than that of the initial form.
A heat engine is a system that performs the conversion of a flow of thermal energy (heat) to mechanical energy to perform mechanical work. [32] [33] A thermocouple is a temperature-measuring device and a widely used type of temperature sensor for measurement and control, and can also be used to convert heat into electric power.
The rate of heat flow is the amount of heat that is transferred per unit of time in some material, usually measured in watts (joules per second). Heat is the flow of thermal energy driven by thermal non-equilibrium, so the term 'heat flow' is a redundancy (i.e. a pleonasm). Heat must not be confused with stored thermal energy, and moving a hot ...
According to the second law of thermodynamics, heat will flow from the hot environment to the cold one as the temperature difference is equalized by diffusion. This is quantified in terms of a heat flux q {\displaystyle q} , which gives the rate, per unit area, at which heat flows in a given direction (in this case minus x-direction).
In thermodynamics, the heat transfer coefficient or film coefficient, or film effectiveness, is the proportionality constant between the heat flux and the thermodynamic driving force for the flow of heat (i.e., the temperature difference, ΔT).
The second law of thermodynamics, on the other hand, assures us that such processes are not found in nature. Before the rigorous mathematical definition of heat based on Carathéodory's 1909 paper, historically, heat, temperature, and thermal equilibrium were presented in thermodynamics textbooks as jointly primitive notions. [43]