Tag: work

In thermodynamics, work performed by a closed system is the energy transferred to another system that is measured by the external generalized mechanical constraints on the system. Essential to the thermodynamic concept of work is that the energy transfer in fictive principle be able to occur at a finite rate without any of it necessarily being dissipated by friction or chemical degradation, which are necessarily dissipative. Thermodynamic work encompasses mechanical work plus many other types of work, such as electrical. As such, thermodynamic work is a generalization of the concept of mechanical work in mechanics. It necessarily excludes energy transferred between systems as heat, which is modeled distinctly in thermodynamics. For closed systems, energy changes in a system other than as work transfer are as heat.
The external generalized mechanical constraints may be electromagnetic, gravitational, or pressure/volume or other simply mechanical constraints. Thermodynamic work is…