The nowadays European educational framework boosts applying the learned theoretical concepts to real situations. Hence, practice sessions are key resources to present students direct applications of the theoretical concepts shown in class. Thus, developing new educational equipment and practice sessions oriented to bringing theoretical knowledge…

The refrigeration process reduces the temperature of a space or a given volume while the power generation process employs a source of thermal energy to generate electrical power. Because of the importance of these two processes, training of engineers in this area is of great interest. In engineering courses it is normally studied the vapor…

The objective of this paper is to present a laboratory program designed for the Thermodynamics course offered in the Department of Thermal Engineering at the University of the Basque Country. With reference to one of the examples given in the textbook by Moran, Shapiro, Boettner and Bailey (2012), the balances of mass, energy, entropy and exergy…

Graphics tablet technology is well known in markets such as manufacturing, graphics arts and design but it has not yet found widespread acceptance for university teaching. A graphics tablet is an affordable teaching tool that combines the best features from traditional and new media. It allows developing a progressive, interactive lecture (as a…

The learning and development of teamwork skill is only possible if its achievement is a self-building process of the student. In turn, the teachers must become guides in the process of a learning which is not limited only to the topic of their own course, but which must be imbedded with a good dose of this skill. Promotion of teamwork is not…

A WebQuest is an Internet-based and inquiry-oriented learning activity. The aim of this work is to outline the creation of a WebQuest entitled "Power Generation Plants: Steam and Gas Turbines." This is one of the topics covered in the course "Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer," which is offered in the second year of Mechanical…

An exercise to compute LLE data is presented to illustrate the problems that can arise when the isoactivity equilibrium condition is used in the LLE calculations. A much more efficient condition is obtained when isoactivity is combined with the common tangent line criterion, avoiding false solutions that correspond with very low values of the…