Thermodynamics

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16 domain-specific abstractions whose origin domain is Thermodynamics.

• Coefficient of performance — The ratio of useful heating or cooling delivered by a heat-moving system to the external work or energy input required.
• Compressed fluid — A liquid-state fluid at a pressure above its saturation pressure for the given temperature, equivalently below saturation temperature at the given pressure, and therefore not about to vaporize under that condition.
• Critical variable — A thermodynamic state variable evaluated at a fluid's critical point, such as critical temperature, pressure or molar volume, where liquid and vapor phases become indistinguishable.
• Evaporation — Surface vaporization in which molecules escape from a liquid into the gas phase, with net rate governed by temperature, vapor pressure, ambient concentration, flow and available surface.
• Exothermic process — A thermodynamic process that transfers energy from the system to its surroundings as heat under a declared boundary and sign convention.
• Gibbs free energy — A thermodynamic potential equal to enthalpy minus temperature times entropy that governs equilibrium and non-expansion work at fixed temperature and pressure.
• Isolated System — A physical or thermodynamic system whose modeled boundary permits neither matter nor energy transfer with its surroundings over the interval and resolution under study.
• Isothermal Process — A thermodynamic process constrained to a constant system temperature while heat, work, composition, phase, pressure, or volume may change consistently with the first and second laws.
• Pressure–volume diagram — A plot of system pressure against volume along one or more processes, whose path shape represents state change and whose enclosed or signed area represents boundary work.
• Principle of minimum energy — A thermodynamic equilibrium principle stating that at fixed entropy and external parameters, a closed system's internal energy is minimized among nearby admissible states.
• Process function — A thermodynamic quantity such as heat or work whose value depends on the path connecting equilibrium states rather than on the endpoints alone.
• Residual property (physics) — A thermodynamic departure function equal to a real-fluid property minus the corresponding ideal-gas property at the same temperature, density or volume, and composition.
• Spontaneous process — A thermodynamic change that proceeds in its favored direction without continuous external driving because the relevant free energy decreases under stated constraints.
• State function — A thermodynamic property determined only by the system’s equilibrium state, so its change is independent of the path between two states.
• Thermodynamic process — A transformation carrying a thermodynamic system between states through a specified path of heat, work and matter exchange.
• Work (thermodynamics) — Energy transferred across a thermodynamic system boundary through generalized macroscopic force–displacement interactions rather than through heat transfer or matter flow.