CHAPTER 3

1ST LAW OF
THERMODYNAMICS

Lecture by: Yalew Mekonnen (Capt)

1
3.1 Introduction
• We are familiar with the conservation of energy principle,
which is an expression of the first law of thermodynamics,
back from our high school years. We are told repeatedly that
energy cannot be created or destroyed during a process; it
can only change from one form to another.
• Consider a room whose door and windows are tightly closed,
and whose walls are well-insulated so that heat loss or gain
through the walls is negligible. Now let’s place a refrigerator
in the middle of the room with its door open, and plug it into
a wall outlet.
• Note that energy is conserved during the process of operating
the refrigerator placed in a room—the electrical energy is
converted into an equivalent amount of thermal energy
stored in the room air.

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3.2 Forms of Energy
• Energy can exist in numerous forms such as thermal,
mechanical, kinetic, potential, electric, magnetic, chemical,
and nuclear, and their sum constitutes the total energy E
of a system. The total energy of a system on a unit mass
basis is denoted by e and is expressed as

• The magnetic, electric, and surface tension effects are

significant in some specialized cases only and are
usually ignored. In the absence of such effects, the total
energy of a system consists of the kinetic, potential,
and internal energies and is expressed as

3
3.3 Mechanical energy
• Many engineering systems are designed to transport a fluid
from one location to another at a specified flow rate, velocity,
and elevation difference, and the system may generate
mechanical work in a turbine or it may consume mechanical
work in a pump or fan during this process.
• The mechanical energy can be defined as the form of
energy that can be converted to mechanical work completely
and directly by an ideal mechanical device such as an ideal
turbine.
• The mechanical energy of a flowing fluid can be expressed
on a unit mass basis as

4
3.4 Energy Transfer by Heat
• Energy can cross the boundary of a closed system in two
distinct forms: heat and work . It is important to distinguish
between these two forms of energy.
• Heat is defined as the form of energy that is transferred
between two systems (or a system and its surroundings) by
virtue of a temperature difference.
• Heat is energy in transition. It is recognized only as it crosses
the boundary of a system.
• A process during which there is no heat transfer is called an
adiabatic process. There are two ways a process can be
adiabatic: Either the system is well insulated so that only a
negligible amount of heat can pass through the boundary, or
both the system and the surroundings are at the same
temperature and therefore there is no driving force
(temperature difference) for heat transfer.

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 3.5 Energy Transfer by Work
• Work, like heat, is an energy interaction between a system
and its surroundings. As mentioned earlier, energy can cross
the boundary of a closed system in the form of heat or work.
Therefore, if the energy crossing the boundary of a closed
system is not heat, it must be work.
• More specifically, work is the energy transfer associated with
a force acting through a distance. A rising piston, a rotating
shaft, and an electric wire crossing the system boundaries
are all associated with work interactions.
• Note that a quantity that is transferred to or from a system
during an interaction is not a property since the amount of
such a quantity depends on more than just the state of the
system. Heat and work are energy transfer mechanisms
between a system and its surroundings, and there are many
similarities between them:

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1. Both are recognized at the boundaries of a system as they
cross the boundaries. That is, both heat and work are
boundary phenomena.
2. Systems possess energy, but not heat or work.
3. Both are associated with a process, not a state. Unlike
properties, heat or work has no meaning at a state.
4. Both are path functions (i.e., their magnitudes depend on the
path followed during a process as well as the end states).

3.6 Boundary Work

• One form of mechanical work frequently encountered in
practice is associated with the expansion or compression of a
gas in a piston–cylinder device. During this process, part of the
boundary (the inner face of the piston) moves back and forth.
Therefore, the expansion and compression work is often called
moving boundary work, or simply boundary work.
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• Consider the gas enclosed in the piston–cylinder device
shown in Fig. 3.1. The initial pressure of the gas is P, the
total volume is V, and the cross-sectional area of the piston
is A. If the piston is allowed to move a distance ds in a
quasi-equilibrium manner, the differential work done
during this process is

Fig. 3.1 Moving Boundary work

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• The total boundary work done during the entire process as
the piston moves is obtained by adding all the differential
works from the initial state to the final state:

(3.1)
• The total area A under the process curve 1–2 (Fig. 3.2) is
obtained by adding these differential areas:

(3.2)
• A comparison of this equation with Eq. 3.1 reveals that the
area under the process curve on a P-V diagram is equal, in
magnitude, to the work done during a quasi-equilibrium
expansion or compression process of a closed system. (On the
P-v diagram, it represents the boundary work done per unit
mass.)

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 Fig. 3.2 The area under the process curve on a P-V diagram
represents the boundary work.
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1. Constant volume
• If the volume is held constant, dV = 0, and the boundary
work equation becomes:

(3.3)

Fig. 3.3 Schematic and P-V diagram for constant volume

(Isochoric) process
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2. Constant pressure (Isobaric)
• If the pressure is held constant, the boundary work equation
becomes:
(3.4)

Fig. 3.4 Schematic and P-V diagram for constant

pressure process

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3. Constant temperature, ideal gas
• If the temperature of an ideal gas system is held constant,
then the equation of state provides the pressure-volume
relation:

• Then, the boundary work is

(3.5)

4. Polytropic Process
• During actual expansion and compression processes of
gases, pressure and volume are often related by PVn = C,
where n and C are constants. A process of this kind is called
a polytropic process.
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• The pressure for a polytropic process can be expressed as

• Substituting this relation into Eq. 3.1, we obtain

(3.6)
• since . For an ideal gas (PV = mRT), this
equation can also be written as

(3.7)
• For the special case of n= 1 the boundary work becomes

• For an ideal gas this result is equivalent to the isothermal

process.

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3.7 First Law of Thermodynamics
• So far, we have considered various forms of energy such as
heat Q, work W, and total energy E individually, and no
attempt is made to relate them to each other during a
process.
• The first law of thermodynamics, also known as the
conservation of energy principle, provides a sound basis for
studying the relationships among the various forms of
energy and energy interactions.
• Based on experimental observations, the first law of
thermodynamics states that energy can be neither created
nor destroyed during a process; it can only change forms.
Therefore, every bit of energy should be accounted for
during a process.

15
Energy Balance
• In the light of the preceding discussions, the conservation of
energy principle can be expressed as follows: The net change
(increase or decrease) in the total energy of the system
during a process is equal to the difference between the total
energy entering and the total energy leaving the system
during that process. That is,

• Or

• This relation is often referred to as the energy balance

and is applicable to any kind of system undergoing any kind
of process.
• The successful use of this relation to solve engineering
problems depends on understanding the various forms of
energy and recognizing the forms of energy transfer.

16
Energy Change of a System, ∆Esystem
• The determination of the energy change of a system during
a process involves the evaluation of the energy of the
system at the beginning and at the end of the process, and
taking their difference. That is,
Energy change = Energy at final state - Energy at initial state
• or

• Note that energy is a property, and the value of a property

does not change unless the state of the system changes.
• the change in the total energy of a system during a process
is the sum of the changes in its internal, kinetic, and
potential energies and can be expressed as

• where

17
• Most systems encountered in practice are stationary, that
is, they do not involve any changes in their velocity or
elevation during a process .
• Thus, for stationary systems, the changes in kinetic and
potential energies are zero (that is, ∆ KE = ∆PE = 0), and
the total energy change relation reduces to ∆E = ∆U for
such systems.
• Also, the energy of a system during a process will change
even if only one form of its energy changes while the other
forms of energy remain unchanged.

18
3.8 Energy Balance for closed system
• Energy balance for any system undergoing any kind of
process was expressed as:

(3.8)

• or, in the rate form, as

(3.9)

• For constant rates, the total quantities during a time

interval ∆t are related to the quantities per unit time as

(3.10)

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• The energy balance can be expressed on a per unit mass
basis as
(3.11)
• For a closed system undergoing a cycle, the initial and
final states are identical, and thus ∆Esystem = E2 - E1 = 0.
Then the energy balance for a cycle simplifies to Ein -Eout = 0
or Ein Eout. Noting that a closed system does not involve any
mass flow across its boundaries, the energy balance for a
cycle can be expressed in terms of heat and work
interactions as:

(3.12)
• That is, the net work output during a cycle is equal to net
heat input (Fig. 3.5).

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 Fig. 3.6. Specific heat is the
energy required to raise the
temperature of a unit mass of
Fig. 3.5. For a cycle ∆E
a substance by one degree in a
=0, thus Q = W.
specified way

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Specific Heats
• The specific heat is defined as the energy required to
raise the temperature of a unit mass of a substance by one
degree (Fig. 3.6). In general, this energy depends on how the
process is executed. In thermodynamics, we are interested in
two kinds of specific heats: specific heat at constant
volume cv and specific heat at constant pressure cp.
• Physically, the specific heat at constant volume cv can be
viewed as the energy required to raise the temperature of the
unit mass of a substance by one degree as the volume is
maintained constant.
• The energy required to do the same as the pressure is
maintained constant is the specific heat at constant pressure
cp. The specific heat at constant pressure cp is always greater
than cv because at constant pressure the system is allowed to
expand and the energy for this expansion work must also be
supplied to the system.
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• Consider a fixed mass in a stationary closed system
undergoing a constant-volume process.
• The conservation of energy principle ein - eout = esystem for this
process can be expressed in the differential form as:

• The left-hand side of this equation represents the net

amount of energy transferred to the system. From the
definition of cv, this energy must be equal to cv.dT, where dT
is the differential change in temperature. Thus,

• or
(3.13)
• Similarly, an expression for the specific heat at constant
pressure cp can be obtained
(3.14)

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3.6 Energy Analysis of Steady-Flow Systems
• A large number of engineering devices such as turbines,
compressors, and nozzles operate for long periods of time
under the same conditions once the transient start-up period
is completed and steady operation is established, and they
are classified as steady-flow devices.
• Processes involving such devices can be represented
reasonably well by a somewhat idealized process, called the
steady-flow process, a process during which a fluid flows
through a control volume steadily.
• That is, the fluid properties can change from point to point
within the control volume, but at any point, they remain
constant during the entire process. (Remember, steady
means no change with time.)
• During a steady-flow process, no intensive or extensive
properties within the control volume change with time.

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• Thus, the volume V, the mass m, and the total energy content
E of the control volume remain constant (Fig. 3.7). As a result,
the boundary work is zero for steady-flow systems (since VCV =
constant), and the total mass or energy entering the control
volume must be equal to the total mass or energy leaving it
(since mCV = constant and ECV = constant). These observations
greatly simplify the analysis.
• The mass balance for a general steady-flow system is given as
(3.15)

• The mass balance for a single-stream (one-inlet and one-

outlet) steady-flow system was given as
(3.16)
• During a steady-flow process, the total energy content of a
control volume remains constant (ECV = constant), and thus
the change in the total energy of the control volume is zero
(∆ECV = 0).
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 Fig. 3.7 Under steady-flow
conditions, the mass and
energy contents of a control
volume remain constant.

Fig. 3.7 Under steady-flow

conditions, the fluid properties
at an inlet or exit remain
constant (do not change with
time).
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• Therefore, the amount of energy entering a control volume
in all forms (by heat, work, and mass) must be equal to the
amount of energy leaving it. Then the rate form of the
general energy balance reduces for a steady-flow process to

(3.17)

• or

(3.18)

• Noting that energy can be transferred by heat, work, and

mass only, the energy balance in Eq. 3.18 for a general
steady-flow system can also be written more explicitly as

(3.19)
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• or
(3.20)

• The first-law or energy balance relation in that case for a

general steady-flow system becomes

(3.21)

• Obtaining a negative quantity for or Ẇ simply means that

the assumed direction is wrong and should be reversed. For
single-stream devices, the steady-flow energy balance
equation becomes

(3.22)

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• Dividing Eq. 3.22 by m gives the energy balance on a unit-
mass basis as

(3.23)
• where q = /ṁ and w = Ẇ/ ṁ are the heat transfer and work
done per unit mass of the working fluid, respectively. When
the fluid experiences negligible changes in its kinetic and
potential energies (that is, ∆ke ≈ 0, ∆pe ≈ 0), the energy
balance equation is reduced further to

• The various terms appearing in the above equations are as

follows:
• Q = rate of heat transfer between the control volume
and its surroundings.
• Ẇ = power.

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3.7 Some Steady-flow Engineering Devices
• Many engineering devices operate essentially under the same
conditions for long periods of time. The components of a steam
power plant (turbines, compressors, heat exchangers, and
pumps), for example, operate nonstop for months before the
system is shut down for maintenance (Fig. 3.8). Therefore,
these devices can be conveniently analyzed as steady-flow
devices.
1. Nozzles and Diffusers
• Nozzles and diffusers are commonly utilized in jet engines,
rockets, spacecraft, and even garden hoses. A nozzle is a
device that increases the velocity of a fluid at the expense
of pressure. A diffuser is a device that increases the
pressure of a fluid by slowing it down. That is, nozzles and
diffusers perform opposite tasks. The cross-sectional area of a
nozzle decreases in the flow direction for subsonic flows and
increases for supersonic flows. The reverse is true for
diffusers.
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 Fig. 3.8 A modern land-based gas turbine used for electric
power production. This is a General Electric LM5000
turbine. It has a length of 6.2 m, it weighs 12.5 tons, and
produces 55.2 MW at 3600 rpm with steam injection.

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• The rate of heat transfer between the fluid flowing through a
nozzle or a diffuser and the surroundings is usually very
small ( = 0) since the fluid has high velocities, and thus it
does not spend enough time in the device for any significant
heat transfer to take place.
• Nozzles and diffusers typically involve no work (Ẇ = 0) and
any change in potential energy is negligible (∆pe = 0).
• But nozzles and diffusers usually involve very high velocities,
and as a fluid passes through a nozzle or diffuser, it
experiences large changes in its velocity (Fig. 3.9).
• Therefore, the kinetic energy changes must be accounted for
in analyzing the flow through these devices (∆ke ≠ 0).

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 Fig. 3.9 Nozzles and diffusers are shaped so that they cause
large changes in fluid velocities and thus kinetic energies.

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2. Turbines and Compressors
• In steam, gas, or hydroelectric power plants, the device that
drives the electric generator is the turbine. As the fluid
passes through the turbine, work is done against the blades,
which are attached to the shaft. As a result, the shaft rotates,
and the turbine produces work.
• Compressors, as well as pumps and fans, are devices used to
increase the pressure of a fluid.
• Work is supplied to these devices from an external source
through a rotating shaft. Therefore, compressors involve
work inputs. Even though these three devices function
similarly, they do differ in the tasks they perform. A fan
increases the pressure of a gas slightly and is mainly used to
mobilize a gas. A compressor is capable of compressing the gas
to very high pressures. Pumps work very much like
compressors except that they handle liquids instead of gases.

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• Note that turbines produce power output whereas
compressors, pumps, and fans require power input. Heat
transfer from turbines is usually negligible ( = 0) since they
are typically well insulated.
• Heat transfer is also negligible for compressors unless there is
intentional cooling. Potential energy changes are negligible for
all of these devices (∆pe ≈ 0).
• The velocities involved in these devices, with the exception of
turbines and fans, are usually too low to cause any significant
change in the kinetic energy (∆ke ≈ 0).
• The fluid velocities encountered in most turbines are very
high, and the fluid experiences a significant change in its
kinetic energy. However, this change is usually very small
relative to the change in enthalpy, and thus it is often
disregarded.

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 3. Throttling Valves
• Throttling valves are any kind of flow-restricting devices that
cause a significant pressure drop in the fluid. Some familiar
examples are ordinary adjustable valves, capillary tubes, and
porous plugs.
• Throttling valves are usually small devices, and the flow
through them may be assumed to be adiabatic (q ≈ 0) since
there is neither sufficient time nor large enough area for any
effective heat transfer to take place. Also, there is no work
done (w ≈ 0), and the change in potential energy, if any, is
very small (∆pe ≈ 0).
• Even though the exit velocity is often considerably higher
than the inlet velocity, in many cases, the increase in kinetic
energy is insignificant (∆ke ≈ 0). Then the conservation of
energy equation for this single-stream steady-flow device
reduces to

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 Fig. 3. 10 Throttling valves are devices that cause large
pressure drops in the fluid.

Fig. 3. 11 The temperature of an ideal gas does not change

during a throttling (h = constant) process since h = h(T).
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4. Mixing Chambers

• In engineering applications, mixing two streams of fluids is

not a rare occurrence. The section where the mixing process
takes place is commonly referred to as a mixing chamber.
The mixing chamber does not have to be a distinct
“chamber.” An ordinary T-elbow or a Y-elbow in a shower, for
example, serves as the mixing chamber for the cold- and hot-
water streams.
• Mixing chambers are usually well insulated (q ≈ 0) and
usually do not involve any kind of work (w = 0). Also, the
kinetic and potential energies of the fluid streams are usually
negligible (ke ≈ 0, pe ≈ 0).
• Then all there is left in the energy equation is the total
energies of the incoming streams and the outgoing mixture.
The conservation of energy principle requires that these two
equal each other.

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 Fig. 3.12 The T-elbow of an ordinary shower serves as the
mixing chamber for the hot- and the cold-water streams.
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 5. Heat Exchangers
• As the name implies, heat exchangers are devices where
two moving fluid streams exchange heat without mixing.
Heat exchangers are widely used in various industries, and
they come in various designs.
• The simplest form of a heat exchanger is a double-tube (also
called tube-and-shell) heat exchanger, shown in Fig. 3.13.

• Heat exchangers typically involve no work interactions (w =

0) and negligible kinetic and potential energy changes (∆ke ≈
0, ∆pe ≈ 0) for each fluid stream.
• The transport of liquids or gases in pipes and ducts is of great

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 6. Pipe and Duct Flow
• The transport of liquids or gases in pipes and ducts is of great
importance in many engineering applications. Flow through a
pipe or a duct usually satisfies the steady-flow conditions and
thus can be analyzed as a steady-flow process. This, of course,
excludes the transient start-up and shut-down periods.
• The control volume can be selected to coincide with the
interior surfaces of the portion of the pipe or the duct that we
are interested in analyzing.
• The velocities involved in pipe and duct flow are relatively
low, and the kinetic energy changes are usually insignificant.
This is particularly true when the pipe or duct diameter is
constant and the heating effects are negligible.
• If the control volume involves a heating section (electric
wires), a fan, or a pump (shaft), the work interactions should
be considered. Of these, fan work is usually small and often
neglected in energy analysis.
41
Fig. 3.13 A heat exchanger
can be as simple as two
concentric pipes.

Fig. 3.13 Pipe or duct flow may

involve more than one form of
work at the same time.
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3.8 Energy Analysis Of Unsteady-flow Processes

• During a steady-flow process, no changes occur within the

control volume; thus, one does not need to be concerned
about what is going on within the boundaries. Not having to
worry about any changes within the control volume with
time greatly simplifies the analysis.
• Many processes of interest, however, involve changes within
the control volume with time. Such processes are called
unsteady-flow, or transient-flow, processes. The steady-flow
relations developed earlier are obviously not applicable to
these processes.
• steady-flow systems are fixed in space, size, and shape.
Unsteady-flow systems, however, are not (Fig. 3.14).
• They are usually stationary; that is, they are fixed in space,
but they may involve moving boundaries and thus boundary
work.
43
Fig. 3.14 The shape and size of a control volume
may change during an unsteady-flow process.

44
• The mass balance for any system undergoing any process
can be expressed as

• For control volumes, it can also be expressed more explicitly

as

• The energy content of a control volume changes with time

during an unsteady-flow process.
• When analyzing an unsteady-flow process, we must keep
track of the energy content of the control volume as well as
the energies of the incoming and outgoing flow streams.
• The general energy balance was given earlier as

45
• The general unsteady-flow process, in general, is difficult to
analyze because the properties of the mass at the inlets and
exits may change during a process. Most unsteady-flow
processes, however, can be represented reasonably well by
the uniform-flow process, which involves the following
idealization:
The fluid flow at any inlet or exit is uniform and steady, and
thus the fluid properties do not change with time or position
over the cross section of an inlet or exit. If they do, they are
averaged and treated as constants for the entire process.
• The initial and final properties of the control volume can be
determined from the knowledge of the initial and final
states, which are completely specified by two independent
intensive properties for simple compressible systems.
• Then the energy balance for a uniform-flow system can be
expressed explicitly as

46
• Where ɵ= u + h + ke + pe is the energy of a fluid stream at
any inlet or exit per unit mass, and e = u + ke + pe is the
energy of the non-flowing fluid within the control volume
per unit mass.
• When the kinetic and potential energy changes associated
with the control volume and fluid streams are negligible, as
is usually the case, the energy balance above simplifies to

• where Q = Qnet,in = Qin - Qout is the net heat input and W

=Wnet,out = Wout - Win is the net work output. Note that if no
mass enters or leaves the control volume during a process
(mi = me = 0, and m1 = m2 = m), this equation reduces to the
energy balance relation for closed systems (Fig. 3.15).

47
 Fig. 3.15 The energy equation of a uniform-flow system
reduces to that of a closed system when all the inlets and
exits are closed.

48
49