Dang, I really suck at Thermodynamics

[NaOH]

It's like circuits but for mechanical engrs......... it should be a bit easier since you can actually picture the process, but for some reason I just lose some of the concepts while doing a problem. EE classes have nerfed my brain =(.

 

[spidey07]

It's fundamental. Learn it now or be doomed.

 

[Sukhoi]

Thermo was odd for me because I understood it and liked it, but did really bad in the class.

 

[NaOH]

Originally posted by: spidey07
It's fundamental. Learn it now or be doomed.

=( Is there a third option?

 

[NaOH]

Originally posted by: Sukhoi
Thermo was odd for me because I understood it and liked it, but did really bad in the class.

I see........

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: AMDUALY

Originally posted by: spidey07
It's fundamental. Learn it now or be doomed.

=( Is there a third option?

Nope. If you want to do any kind of engineering you had better get this "basic" stuff down.

 

[Random Variable]

I liked the statistical mechanics part.

 

[NaOH]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: AMDUALY

Originally posted by: spidey07
It's fundamental. Learn it now or be doomed.

=( Is there a third option?

Nope. If you want to do any kind of engineering you had better get this "basic" stuff down.

Yeah, it's just strange to be in my 4th year and to have gone through most of my core EE classes to all of a sudden be thrown in a mech class. I suppose this is easier than thermo physics.

I finish this class up tomorrow. Cheers to all who are in their last week of the semester.

 

[Tiamat]

Tester and Modell is a rough rough book, but once you learn how to read it, it really helps to make thermo much easier to understand. This is for Chemical Engineering Thermo however. Once you grasp the fundamentals, thermodynamics is much easier.

All you need to know is the first law, second law, lagrange transformations. If you know these well, you can derive everything else. This is the key to getting reversible, non-statistical thermo.

 

[BlueWeasel]

Out of all the classes I took in college, I hated Thermo the most. My professor was terrible.

Being a civil engineering major, I had to pick between a ME (thermo) or EE (electrical circuits I think) electrical. Given the nature of my work now, I wish I had taken the EE course, but I took thermo instead. :disgust:

 

[Triumph]

Originally posted by: Sukhoi
Thermo was odd for me because I understood it and liked it, but did really bad in the class.

Me too. One of my few B's.

But seriously, I understood it, but couldn't do well on the tests, which was rare for me. But I disagree about it being fundamental. It's a 3rd or 4th year class, and it's by no means necessary for a lot of mechanical engineering. Just like any course, once you get into the real world, you rarely crack open that book to use some strange equation derived by a guy whose name you can't pronounce. Now if you want to focus on heat transfer, well then yeah, you need to know it. But don't sweat it too much.

 

[ebaycj]

Thermo is easy.

 

[Tom]

Originally posted by: Triumph

Originally posted by: Sukhoi
Thermo was odd for me because I understood it and liked it, but did really bad in the class.

Me too. One of my few B's.

But seriously, I understood it, but couldn't do well on the tests, which was rare for me. But I disagree about it being fundamental. It's a 3rd or 4th year class, and it's by no means necessary for a lot of mechanical engineering. Just like any course, once you get into the real world, you rarely crack open that book to use some strange equation derived by a guy whose name you can't pronounce. Now if you want to focus on heat transfer, well then yeah, you need to know it. But don't sweat it too much.

I would have thought all forms of engineering have to deal with thermodynamics in some respect ?

maybe not on a very deep level, but to some extent.

 

[Special K]

Is thermo required for most EEs? I never had to take it, although I had to take an "engineering science elective", and one of the choices was thermo. Basically you had to take an engineering class from a discipline other than your own.

 

[Triumph]

Originally posted by: Tom

Originally posted by: Triumph

Originally posted by: Sukhoi
Thermo was odd for me because I understood it and liked it, but did really bad in the class.

Me too. One of my few B's.

But seriously, I understood it, but couldn't do well on the tests, which was rare for me. But I disagree about it being fundamental. It's a 3rd or 4th year class, and it's by no means necessary for a lot of mechanical engineering. Just like any course, once you get into the real world, you rarely crack open that book to use some strange equation derived by a guy whose name you can't pronounce. Now if you want to focus on heat transfer, well then yeah, you need to know it. But don't sweat it too much.

I would have thought all forms of engineering have to deal with thermodynamics in some respect ?

maybe not on a very deep level, but to some extent.

In terms of fundamental laws that you can't break? Then yes. But you don't need it to design hardware, or do stress analyses (where heat isn't involved), or controls, or electro-mechanical, etc. I could probably design everything in a vehicle with the exception of the engine and heating/cooling without ever cracking open a thermo book. Well, I could, if I was a good engineer. And hell, alot of design is just based on experience, guesswork, and lots of margin for error without ever doing a calculation.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Originally posted by: AMDUALY
It's like circuits but for mechanical engrs......... it should be a bit easier since you can actually picture the process, but for some reason I just lose some of the concepts while doing a problem. EE classes have nerfed my brain =(.

It's not like circuits but for MEs... Everyone gets circuits as an EE and it's a hell of a lot easier to understand KVL, KCL and harmonic oscillators than say Clausius Clapyron or Nernst Eq.

Odd thing is I got the same grade in both thermo and circuits.

 

[So]

I actually didn't have to take thermo for my EE degree. Only a little thermo in phyiscs. The only ME course we take is Statics.

 

[Slammy1]

Thermo struck me as just another physics class. You take some assumptions, basic equations, derive the rest. Statistical thermo was far less intuitive. Thermo was weird for me as I was tutoring the class while taking it.

 

[radioouman]

I don't even remember thermo.
and I hate mech-e.

 

[Sukhoi]

Originally posted by: Triumph

Originally posted by: Sukhoi
Thermo was odd for me because I understood it and liked it, but did really bad in the class.

Me too. One of my few B's.

But seriously, I understood it, but couldn't do well on the tests, which was rare for me. But I disagree about it being fundamental. It's a 3rd or 4th year class, and it's by no means necessary for a lot of mechanical engineering. Just like any course, once you get into the real world, you rarely crack open that book to use some strange equation derived by a guy whose name you can't pronounce. Now if you want to focus on heat transfer, well then yeah, you need to know it. But don't sweat it too much.

3rd or 4th year? It's the first ME class you take at Illinois other than CAD.

 

[magomago]

Thermo here is actually 2 classes- you have the regular class in the second 1/2 of your second year as "Thermo" and then as a 4th year mechanical engineer you take a "Thermo Lab" which goes into more advanced thermo for lecture and then you have some program where you simulate a lot of things.
I personally don't know exactly, I'm not a MAE I'll be taking thermo (the one for 2nd years) as a 4th year though because my scheduling makes no sense

 

[JEDI]

Originally posted by: AMDUALY
It's like circuits but for mechanical engrs......... it should be a bit easier since you can actually picture the process, but for some reason I just lose some of the concepts while doing a problem. EE classes have nerfed my brain =(.

i couldnt make head of tails of thermoD either, yet i understood quantum physics perfectly