Instructor

Sandip Kumar Saha

Semester

Autumn ‘20

Course Difficulty

The course begins from basic topics in thermodynamics and extends to more difficult ones (e.g. Fugacity). The lecture videos should be viewed diligently, or else one might miss some key concepts. The lecture videos themselves are not extensive, thus for problem-solving, one has to pursue other means, such as YouTube videos, previous year GATE papers, etc. Way too many platforms (Google Meet, Webex, SAFE, Codetantra, Moodle) were used to take exams, which might lead to some confusion. Thus overall, a considerable amount of effort is required.

Time Commitment Required

Considerable time commitment is required apart from the lecture hours, owing to the “flipped” nature of lectures. The quizzes were also not taken during the designated lecture hours.

Grading Policy and Statistics

AA 7
AB 4
AU 1
BB 17
BC 19
CC 9
CD 3
DD 3
FR 4
Total 67

Attendance Policy

None

Pre-requisites

None

Evaluation Scheme

Assignments (2): 20%
Quizzes (6): 18%
Midsem: 31%
Endsem: 31%

Topics Covered in the Course

Open and Closed Systems
Laws of Thermodynamics
Steady State Conditions
Reversible and Irreversible Processes
Exergy Analysis
Thermodynamic Relations
Ideal & Real Gas Mixtures
Fugacity
Chemical Reaction
Phase and Chemical Equilibrium
Kinetic theory of Gas
Statistical Thermodynamics

Teaching Style

Inverted Classroom: Lecture videos shared by the professor beforehand, to be viewed by the student before attending the lecture. Discussion on the uploaded video/slides during the lecture hours.
Professor’s teaching can tend to get boring sometimes, given the 1.5-hour duration of lectures. Doubt solving might end up being an issue with professor sometimes.

Tutorials/Assignments/Projects

There were 2 assignments, each take home and sufficient time was given to submit them. The questions were mainly taken from GATE exam papers.

Feedback on Exams

The exam questions were mostly directly taken from previous year GATE exams.
The Midsem and Endsem exams’ syllabus was everything taught in the respective half-semester. The question papers were provided on Moodle and the tests had to be submitted there itself.
The quizzes were to be taken on SAFE and and the submission was to be done on both SAFE and Moodle.
The overall difficulty of the tests can be termed between intermediate-difficult.

Motivation for taking this course

A liking for Thermodynamics was the primary reason.

How strongly would I recommend this course?

One can take this course up if they’re genuinely interested in thermodynamics, but a lot of self study would be required on the student’s part.

When to take this course?

I took the course in my 7th semester. The ideal semesters for undertaking this course would be after the 6th sem (After ME 306: Applied Thermodynamics is done).

References Used

Books
 Sonntag, Borgnakke & Van Wylen
 Cengel & Boles
 Adrian Bejan
 Moran Shapiro
 Sears and Salinger

Interesting relevant links

“Advanced Thermodynamics and Combustion” by Prof. S Gopalakrishnan, although the course by Prof. Saha diverged a bit at the later stages.
http://www.cdeep.iitb.ac.in/vod/vodCloud/course_intra.php?ccode=208
Go to “Archived Semester”, select “Mechanical Engineering” and then search “ME661” by Prof. Shivasubramanium Gopalakrishnan.

Review By: Rohan Singh