Free ebookThermodynamics for Makers: Heat, Work, and Efficiency in Real Machines

Course Description

Thermodynamics for Makers: Heat, Work, and Efficiency in Real Machines is a practical physics ebook course in basic studies designed for anyone who builds, repairs, or optimizes devices that move heat and produce power. You will learn how to translate temperature readings, pressure changes, and energy use into clear conclusions you can act on, whether you are tuning a small engine, improving a DIY refrigerator setup, or diagnosing why a household machine wastes energy.

Starting from energy, temperature, and state variables in real devices, the course builds intuition for the Zeroth Law and practical temperature measurement so your data is trustworthy. You then connect heat and work as energy transfer across boundaries, using sign conventions that prevent common mistakes when you calculate what is entering or leaving a system. With the First Law as your accounting tool, you will balance energy in everyday machines and understand where losses hide, from friction and pressure drops to unwanted heat leaks.

As you progress, you will work with properties of pure substances and phase change, making sense of boiling, condensation, and latent heat in situations like kettles, distillation, and vapor compression. You will also compare ideal gas models to real behavior and recognize when approximations break in compressors, tanks, and high pressure builds. Pressure–volume diagrams and quasi-static processes become visual design aids you can plot and interpret, helping you reason about work, efficiency, and operating limits.

Because real performance depends on heat flow, you will connect conduction, convection, and radiation to materials, geometry, and airflow decisions in builds and repairs. Entropy and the Second Law are introduced in a maker friendly way to explain why efficiency has hard limits and why some claims are physically impossible. Thermodynamic cycles are treated as design tools, linking Carnot intuition to Otto style engines and vapor compression refrigeration, so you can discuss COP, load, and common failure modes with confidence.

By the end, you will be able to troubleshoot with thermodynamics, diagnosing compressors, leaks, poor heat exchange, and unrealistic efficiency claims, while planning a capstone efficiency upgrade for a household thermal system. Start the course now and turn core physics into reliable, real world decision making for machines you can touch.