×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Text for thermo beginner!

Text for thermo beginner!

Text for thermo beginner!

(OP)
Looking for advice on a good text for mechanical technologist new to thermodynamics. Would like something that starts with basics of heat transfer and progresses to intermediate (basic design of heat exchangers etc.). Have Applied Thermodyanmics (Eastop & McKonkey, 5th edition) but would like something more thorough and user-friendly. Thanks a lot.

RE: Text for thermo beginner!

"User friendly?"  Those words are rarely used to describe thermo books.  Shaum's Outline Series might have one on thermodyamics.  That would be the best choice but I'm afraid that to get an adequate handle on the subject (and even to be able to understand Shaum's Outline) you'd have to take two or more undergraduate thermodynamics courses.

RE: Text for thermo beginner!

Are you looking for a text on Thermodynamics or Heat Transfer?  These are two different topics...but your note seems to confuse the two.


Regards,

Bob

RE: Text for thermo beginner!

(OP)
Bob, actually I think Heat Transfer is what Im after here. I am mostly wanting to learn about designing and sizing heat exchangers, but want to start from the basics. Thanks for clarifying.

RE: Text for thermo beginner!

RV,

Are you looking at this from the standpoint of interest, or are you actually wanting to design heat exchangers?

If you are intending to do design, then I would recommend registering for the appropriate course(s) at your local University.  Heat transfer can be quite complex and requires a strong background in mathematics, fluid mechanics, physical properties...as well as understanding the principles of conduction, convection, radiation, etc.

If you are looking for a text to "broaden" your knowledge base, I have an old copy of "Heat Transfer" by J.P. Holman that I like.  "Process Heat Transfer" by Kern is a bit outdated...but still proves to be a good reference.


Good luck!

Bob

RE: Text for thermo beginner!

(OP)
Bob,

Just want to broaden my base for now (more courses later!!!) and looking for a shortcut to the right material. Thanks for the suggestion.

RV

RE: Text for thermo beginner!

RV-

Try "Compact Heat Exchangers" by Kays and London.  I have found that text to be the most useful of all for heat exchanger design.  If you start looking through it, however, I think you'll see what Bob is talking about regarding the need to have sufficient theoretical and mathematical preparation for heat exchanger design (and thermal sciences in general).

Tunalover

RE: Text for thermo beginner!

RV,

If you are interested, some professors at MIT have posted a full copy of their heat transfer texbook online at the URL below. Actually this URL contains the link to the text.

http://web.mit.edu/lienhard/www/ahttproject.pdf

Regards,

Gunnar

RE: Text for thermo beginner!

Hi RV,
A couple of places to learn heat transfer are http://www.HeaterDesign.com and http://www.HRSGdesign.com. The first site will walk you through the radiant and covection heat transfer concepts for direct fired heaters, where the second will do the same for waste heat boiler and HRSG design.  These are both free educational sites which contain numerous JavaScripts to help you learn the computational methods.
Jack

RE: Text for thermo beginner!

RV, If your looking for some Heat Transfer/Thermo info in down and dirty format, my suggestion would be, "The Essentials" series in "Heat Transfer I &II, and Thermodynamics I & II",put out by the Research and Education Association, 61 Ethel Road West, Piscataway N.J.. You also might want to pickup a copy of the "Handbook of Heat Transfer Applications" by McGraw Hill, but this text is not user friendly or geared to the novice.

Goodluck!

saxon

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources