Thermodynamic Principles

Educational Objectives
Understanding Thermodynamic Principles
Objective		Specific Examples
P-I	Understanding the first law of thermodynamics.	Recognizing the difference between state functions like the internal energy and path-dependent quantities like work and heat. Understanding that work and heat represent forms of energy transfer, and that the effect on the state of body depends only on the sum of work and heat transfered. Recognition and distinction the different means that a solid can store internal energy. Understanding the concept of reversibility or quasi-static processes. Recognizing and understanding of different types of thermodynamic systems and processes.
P-II	Understanding the second law of thermodynamics.	Understanding that entropy is a state function. Understanding the conditions and processes by which entropy of a system can change. Recognition that entropy of the universe increases in spontaneous processes. Understanding that maximization of entropy of an isolated system; or, equivalently, the minimization of internal energy in a quasi-static adiabatic system leads to a definition of equilibrium.
P-III	Understanding the uses of auxiliary thermodynamic functions.	Understanding of how to construct an energy function that is minimal at equilibrium for a given set of constraints. Understanding of the mathematical relations that follow from the definitions of the auxiliary functions. Understanding that an appropriate thermodynamic potential is uniform in a system at equilibrium.
P-IV	Understanding the distinction between thermodynamic requirements and material properties.	Understand the difference between thermodynamic relationships, models for material behavior, and the idealization of models as approximations to real materials.
P-V	Understanding the construction of a phase diagram.	Understanding relation between molar free energy curves of solutions, common tangents and phase diagrams. Understanding the meaning of multiphase equilibrium portions of a phase diagram and how the Gibbs phase rule applies to them. Understanding how the lever rule is applied and the compositions of multiples phases in equilibrium. Understand relation between stability and curvature of a molar free energy of solution.
P-VI	Understanding the microscopic origins of thermodynamic quantities.	Understanding of relation of entropy to the number of accessible states. Understanding of the relation of the partition function to the probability of finding a system in a particular state.