Thermal Energy and Energy Resources flashcards

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What is temperature?Temperature and Particle Motion: A property related to average particle kinetic energy in a simple model.
What is the SI temperature unit?Temperature and Particle Motion: Kelvin (K).
How do you convert Celsius to kelvin?Temperature and Particle Motion: T(K) = T(°C) + 273.15.
Does equal temperature imply equal total internal energy?Temperature and Particle Motion: No; size, composition, and state also matter.
What is internal energy?Temperature and Particle Motion: Microscopic kinetic and potential energy within a system.
What is heating?Temperature and Particle Motion: Energy transfer because of a temperature difference.
What is thermal equilibrium?Temperature and Particle Motion: No net heat transfer between contacting systems at the same temperature.
Does equal temperature mean particles stop moving?Temperature and Particle Motion: No.
What is thermal expansion?Temperature and Particle Motion: A size change associated with temperature change.
What is α in a linear expansion model?Temperature and Particle Motion: Material-specific expansion coefficient.
Why use expansion joints?Temperature and Particle Motion: To allow size changes with temperature.
Does expansion create new material?Temperature and Particle Motion: No; particle spacing can change.
What is conduction?Heat Transfer: Energy transfer through interactions among neighboring particles.
What is a thermal conductor?Heat Transfer: A material that transfers thermal energy relatively readily.
What is an insulator?Heat Transfer: A material or structure that reduces thermal transfer rate.
Can radiation cross a vacuum?Heat Transfer: Yes.
What is convection?Heat Transfer: Energy transfer involving bulk movement of fluid.
What is natural convection?Heat Transfer: Fluid movement driven by buoyancy under suitable conditions.
What is forced convection?Heat Transfer: Fluid movement driven by a fan, pump, or similar device.
Can convection occur in a vacuum?Heat Transfer: No; it requires a fluid.
What is thermal radiation?Heat Transfer: Electromagnetic energy emitted by matter due to its temperature.
Can thermal radiation travel through vacuum?Heat Transfer: Yes.
What determines net radiative gain?Heat Transfer: Incoming absorption compared with outgoing emission.
Is thermal radiation nuclear radioactivity?Heat Transfer: No.
What is specific heat capacity?Specific Heat and Phase Change: Energy transfer per mass per temperature change.
What is the heating equation?Specific Heat and Phase Change: Q = mcΔT when c is approximately constant and phase is unchanged.
What is c in SI units?Specific Heat and Phase Change: J/(kg·K).
When can Q = mcΔT fail as a simple account?Specific Heat and Phase Change: Across a phase change or varying c without added modeling.
What is latent energy L?Specific Heat and Phase Change: Energy per mass for a specified phase change.
What is the phase-change equation?Specific Heat and Phase Change: Q = mL under stated conditions.
What is evaporation?Specific Heat and Phase Change: Escape of molecules from a liquid surface.
What is boiling?Specific Heat and Phase Change: Vapor formation throughout a liquid at a pressure-dependent boiling point.
What does a sloped heating segment suggest?Specific Heat and Phase Change: Temperature change within a phase.
What does an ideal plateau suggest?Specific Heat and Phase Change: A phase transition with transfer at nearly constant temperature.
What extra information links time to energy?Specific Heat and Phase Change: Heating power and losses.
Can mixtures have non-flat phase transitions?Specific Heat and Phase Change: Yes.
What is a renewable resource?Energy Sources and Electricity Generation: One replenished on a relevant human-use timescale under stated conditions.
What is a fossil fuel?Energy Sources and Electricity Generation: Ancient carbon-rich material used as a nonrenewable energy resource.
Is nuclear fuel usually renewable?Energy Sources and Electricity Generation: No, commonly used fissile fuel is finite.
Does renewable mean impact-free?Energy Sources and Electricity Generation: No.
What is a turbine?Energy Sources and Electricity Generation: A device converting fluid-flow energy into rotation.
What is a generator?Energy Sources and Electricity Generation: A device converting mechanical energy into electrical energy by induction.
What is a photovoltaic cell?Energy Sources and Electricity Generation: A device converting some light energy directly into electrical energy.
What is an electrical grid?Energy Sources and Electricity Generation: A network transferring electric energy from sources to users.
What is electrical power?Energy Sources and Electricity Generation: Rate of electrical energy transfer.
What is a kilowatt-hour?Energy Sources and Electricity Generation: Energy used by 1 kW over 1 hour.
What is round-trip efficiency?Energy Sources and Electricity Generation: Energy recovered from storage divided by energy used to charge it.
Is rated capacity actual energy output?Energy Sources and Electricity Generation: No; duration and operating conditions matter.
What is life-cycle assessment?Environmental Tradeoffs and Energy Accounting: Evaluation of impacts across stated stages of a product or system.
What is a functional unit?Environmental Tradeoffs and Energy Accounting: A common output basis for comparison.
Why set a boundary?Environmental Tradeoffs and Energy Accounting: Included stages determine the calculated impacts.
Does low operating emissions mean zero life-cycle impacts?Environmental Tradeoffs and Energy Accounting: No.
What is an environmental tradeoff?Environmental Tradeoffs and Energy Accounting: A gain on one goal paired with a cost on another.
What is reliability in a power system?Environmental Tradeoffs and Energy Accounting: Ability to meet demand under specified conditions.
Can storage help variable generation?Environmental Tradeoffs and Energy Accounting: Yes, within capacity and efficiency limits.
Does one impact metric settle all choices?Environmental Tradeoffs and Energy Accounting: No.
What is a baseline?Environmental Tradeoffs and Energy Accounting: The starting quantity used for comparison.
What is a denominator?Environmental Tradeoffs and Energy Accounting: The reference amount in a ratio or percentage.
Why distinguish power from energy?Environmental Tradeoffs and Energy Accounting: Power is a rate; energy accumulates over time.
Does sequence alone prove causation?Environmental Tradeoffs and Energy Accounting: No.