THERMODYNAMICS, HEAT MOTORS, AND REFRIGERATING MACHINES. BY DE VOLSON WOOD, C.E., M.A., LATE PROFEssor of MECHANICAL ENGINEERING, STEVENS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY. EIGHTH EDITION. REVISED AND ENLARGED. NEW YORK JOHN WILEY & SONS LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, LIMITED 1905 PREFACE. 6937366 THE following work has been prepared to meet a want experienced by myself in my course of instruction in Thermodynamics. After reading several works upon the subject, including those of the founders of the science-Rankine, Clausius, Thomson-I was most favorably impressed with the spirit of Rankine's mode of discussing the subject. It is in keeping with the modern method of treating Analytical Mechanies, in which the analysis is founded upon ideal conditions established by definitions, and the resulting formulas modified to represent the infinite variety of conditions in nature. But Rankine's giant-like processes are not adapted to the wants of the average student. Article 241 of his Steam Engine and other Prime Movers reaches the height of sublimity in regard to terseness, comprehensiveness, and obscurity. Without a proper preliminary, he crowds into a few words a principle which has cost other writers protracted labor and heroic efforts to establish. My aim has not been to bring down the subject to the comprehension of the reader, but to lead him up, by a more easy and uniformly graded path, to the same height, and at the same time familiarize him with the way by a free use of illustrations, exercises, historic references, and numerical examples. |