Chapter One

Question 1

What is a system?

Answer 1

Whatever we want to study

Question 2

What are surroundings?

Answer 2

Everything that is external to the system

Question 3

What is a system boundary?

Answer 3

It distinguishes the system from its surroundings

Question 4

What is a closed system?

Answer 4

It is defined when a particular quantity of matter is under study.
It always contains the same matter.

Question 5

What is a control mass?

Answer 5

The same thing as a closed system.

Question 6

What is an isolated system?

Answer 6

It is a special type of closed system that does not interact in any way with its surroundings.

Question 7

What is a control volume?

Answer 7

It is a region within a prescribed boundary.
Mass crosses the boundary.

Question 8

What is an open system?

Answer 8

The same thing as a control volume.

Question 9

What is a property?

Answer 9

It is a macroscopic characteristic of a system to which a numerical value can be assigned at a given time without knowledge of the previous behavior of the system.
Ex: Mass, volume, energy, pressure, and temperature

Question 10

What is a state?

Answer 10

It is a condition of a system as described by its properties.
It can often be specified by providing the values of a subset of properties.
All others can be determined by these few.

Question 11

What is a process?

Answer 11

It is a transformation from one state to another.

Question 12

What is a steady state?

Answer 12

It is when none of the properties of a system change with time.

Question 13

What is an extensive property?

Answer 13

It is when the value for an overall system is the sum of its values for the parts into which the system is divided.
Properties that are additive.
Ex: Mass, volume, energy, etc

Question 14

What is an intensive property?

Answer 14

It is when values are independent of the size or extent of a system and may vary from place to place within the system at any moment.
Properties that are not additive.
Ex: Density

Question 15

What is equilibrium?

Answer 15

Balance in a system.

Question 16

What are the four kinds of equilibrium needed to have complete equilibrium?

Answer 16

Mechanical, thermal, phase, and chemical.

Question 17

What is an equilibrium state?

Answer 17

It is a state of balance.

Question 18

What is density (ρ) ?

Answer 18

It is mass per unit volume.
It is an intensive property that can vary from point to point.

Question 19

What is specific volume (ν) ?

Answer 19

It is the volume per unit mass.
It is the reciprocal of the density!
It is an intensive property that can vary from point to point.

Question 20

What is pressure (p) ?

Answer 20

It is the normal force exerted on a unit area.
It is an intensive property that can vary from point to point.

Question 21

What is absolute pressure (p) ?

Answer 21

It is the pressure with respect to zero pressure of a complete vacuum.
It must be used in thermodynamic relations.
It is assumed to be the case unless otherwise stated.

Question 22

What is temperature (T) ?

Answer 22

It is the measurement of the “hotness” or “coldness” of an object.
It is the property used to determine thermal equilibrium.

Question 23

What is the zeroth law of thermodynamics?

Answer 23

It is if two objects are in thermal equilibrium with a third object, then they are in thermal equilibrium with one another.

Question 24

What is engineering design?

Answer 24

It is a decision-making process in which principles drawn from engineering and other fields are applied, usually iteratively, to devise a system, system component, or process.
It must work within various constraints.

Question 25

What is engineering analysis?

Answer 25

It is the consideration of the design, its validity, inputs/outputs, etc.