A MATLAB Toolkit to Generate and Visualize Thermodynamic Property Data in Undergraduate Thermodynamics Courses

Ahmet Umit Coskun; Kai-Tak Wan

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Conference: ASEE Zone 1 Conference - Spring 2023
Location: State College,, Pennsylvania
Publication Date: March 30, 2023
Start Date: March 30, 2023
End Date: April 12, 2023
Page Count: 6
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--45078
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/45078
Download Count: 43

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Paper Authors

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Ahmet Umit Coskun Northeastern University orcid.org/0000-0002-5388-5362

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Dr Ahmet Umit Coskun is currently Teaching Professor in Mechanical and Industrial Engineerting Department of Northeastern University. He holds BS, MSc, and PhD degrees from Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey.

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Kai-Tak Wan Northeastern University

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Professor, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Northeastern University
1988 B.Sc. (Hon) in Physics, University of New South Wales, Australia
1993 Ph.D. in Chemical Physics, University of Maryland at College Park, USA

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Abstract

In many undergraduate engineering thermodynamics courses, applications of the 1st and 2nd laws involve solid-liquid-vapor phase diagrams of water and refrigerants such as R134a, as well as thermodynamic properties of states spanning different phases. Virtually all exercises require strenuous efforts of looking up data of internal energy (u), enthalpy (h), entropy(s) etc. using the property tables in textbooks followed by tedious linear interpolation. Such efforts are always time consuming, prone to errors, and oftentimes eclipses important and basic concept of thermodynamics. It will be helpful to both the instructor and students to literally visualize specific thermal processes in the standard 3D p-v-T charts, as well as u, h and s, before proceeding to more advanced concepts. In most US institutes, it is quite common that extra efforts are required from the instructors to explain the manual extraction of useful information from these tables, even though the younger generation grows up in a digital age. A user-friendly interface is necessary to promote learning in the 21st century. Mathworks supported us with a micro-grant to build a Matlab toolkit aiming to replace the tables by digital input/output, to allow 3D visualization, to perform calculation in rudimentary thermal processes (e.g. isobaric, isothermal and isentropic) for water, R134a and other refrigerants. The project began in Jan 2021 and concluded in Dec 2023, supporting participations of several undergrad/graduate students and class evaluation. The Matlab Toolkit is essentially a desktop calculator app with convenient programming features with a goal of replacing the interpolation that students generally do in standard thermodynamics courses in mechanical, chemical and biomedical engineering. The tabulated discrete data in the textbook and/or published by NIST are converted into a database, and the intermediate values are computed by built-in linear / nonlinear interpolation consistent with textbook data. The toolkit can also generate 3D plots with the flexibility of 3D rotation and arrows to indicate processes. For instance, water going from cold liquid to hot steam under constant pressure that involves phase change and latent heat of vaporization can be visualized in 3D p-v-T and p-v-h graphs. The toolkit is now ready for water and R134a and can be extended to other refrigerant as long as thermodynamic data are available. It is currently implemented in the mandatory undergraduate course of ME 2380 Thermodynamics in Spring 2023. We will collect student evaluation and feedback by semester end which will be used for further improvement. Should the toolkit prove to be successful, we will promote other engineering departments, physics, and chemistry to adopt, and will collect further inputs from instructors in other disciplines.

Citation
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Coskun, A. U., & Wan, K. (2023, March), A MATLAB Toolkit to Generate and Visualize Thermodynamic Property Data in Undergraduate Thermodynamics Courses Paper presented at ASEE Zone 1 Conference - Spring 2023, State College,, Pennsylvania. 10.18260/1-2--45078

TY - CPAPER
AB - In many undergraduate engineering thermodynamics courses, applications of the 1st and 2nd laws involve solid-liquid-vapor phase diagrams of water and refrigerants such as R134a, as well as thermodynamic properties of states spanning different phases. Virtually all exercises require strenuous efforts of looking up data of internal energy (u), enthalpy (h), entropy(s) etc. using the property tables in textbooks followed by tedious linear interpolation. Such efforts are always time consuming, prone to errors, and oftentimes eclipses important and basic concept of thermodynamics. It will be helpful to both the instructor and students to literally visualize specific thermal processes in the standard 3D p-v-T charts, as well as u, h and s, before proceeding to more advanced concepts. In most US institutes, it is quite common that extra efforts are required from the instructors to explain the manual extraction of useful information from these tables, even though the younger generation grows up in a digital age. A user-friendly interface is necessary to promote learning in the 21st century.
Mathworks supported us with a micro-grant to build a Matlab toolkit aiming to replace the tables by digital input/output, to allow 3D visualization, to perform calculation in rudimentary thermal processes (e.g. isobaric, isothermal and isentropic) for water, R134a and other refrigerants. The project began in Jan 2021 and concluded in Dec 2023, supporting participations of several undergrad/graduate students and class evaluation.
The Matlab Toolkit is essentially a desktop calculator app with convenient programming features with a goal of replacing the interpolation that students generally do in standard thermodynamics courses in mechanical, chemical and biomedical engineering. The tabulated discrete data in the textbook and/or published by NIST are converted into a database, and the intermediate values are computed by built-in linear / nonlinear interpolation consistent with textbook data. The toolkit can also generate 3D plots with the flexibility of 3D rotation and arrows to indicate processes. For instance, water going from cold liquid to hot steam under constant pressure that involves phase change and latent heat of vaporization can be visualized in 3D p-v-T and p-v-h graphs.
The toolkit is now ready for water and R134a and can be extended to other refrigerant as long as thermodynamic data are available. It is currently implemented in the mandatory undergraduate course of ME 2380 Thermodynamics in Spring 2023. We will collect student evaluation and feedback by semester end which will be used for further improvement. Should the toolkit prove to be successful, we will promote other engineering departments, physics, and chemistry to adopt, and will collect further inputs from instructors in other disciplines.

AU - Ahmet Umit Coskun
AU - Kai-Tak Wan
CY - State College,, Pennsylvania
DA - 2023/03/30
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - A MATLAB Toolkit to Generate and Visualize Thermodynamic Property Data in Undergraduate Thermodynamics Courses
UR - https://peer.asee.org/45078
DO - 10.18260/1-2--45078
ER -