Traditionally, engineering students have learned about the thermodynamics of gas turbines by studying diagrams and solving equations, but this year they also donned hard hats, safety glasses and ear ...

When I began my power industry career years ago (initially in the chemistry lab of a coal-fired power plant), the criticality of proper chemistry control of steam boilers, cooling water systems, and ...

(Editor’s Note: This story originally ran in November 2008 and has proved a perennial favorite of Power Engineering readers. With the New Year we thought we’d share it again. Click here to see the ...

The fuel cell thermodynamic efficiency is given by the ratio of the Gibbs function change to the Enthalpy change in the overall cell reaction. The Gibbs function change measures the electrical work ...

The Laws of Thermodynamics are the foundation of heat transfer and energy work. When any engineer is designing or implementing a system, the consideration of heat loss or energy produced is influenced ...

When French engineer Sadi Carnot calculated the maximum efficiency of a heat engine in 1824, he had no idea what heat was. In those days, physicists thought heat was a fluid called caloric. But Carnot ...

Physicists have created a device that has experimentally exceeded the conventional second law of thermodynamics. The device is an information engine, which converts information into work, and it is ...

As steam engines became increasingly widespread in the 19th century, the question soon arose as to how to optimise them. Thermodynamics, the physical theory that resulted from the study of these ...