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working fluid

A working fluid is a pressurized gas or liquid that actuates a machine. Examples include steam in a steam engine, heat engine, Stirling Engine, air in a hot air engine and hydraulic fluid in a hydraulic motor or hydraulic cylinder. More generally, in a thermodynamic system, the working fluid is a liquid or gas that absorbs or transmits energy.

The working fluid properties are essential for the full description of thermodynamic systems. Although working fluids have a very large number of physical properties which can be defined, the thermodynamic properties which are often required in engineering design and analysis are few. Pressure, temperature, enthalpy, entropy, specific volume and internal energy are the most common.

If at least two thermodynamic properties are known, the state of the working fluid can be defined. This is usually done on a property diagram which is simply a plot of one property versus another.

When the working fluid passes through engineering components such as turbines and compressors, the point on a property diagram moves due to the possible changes of certain properties. In theory therefore it is possible to draw a line/curve which fully describes the thermodynamic properties of the fluid. In reality however this can only be done if the process is reversible. If not, the changes in property are represented as a dotted line on a property diagram. This issue does not really affect thermodynamic analysis since in most cases it is the end states of a process which are sought after. Wikipedia, Working Fluid

See Also


astral fluid
Azeotrope
Cycle of Temperature
Dynaspheric Force
flow-through material
Fluid Propulsion - 1061142
Freon
Heat Engine
Heat pump and refrigeration cycle
Refrigerant
Rheostatic Fluids
Rhythmic Balanced Interchange
Stirling Engine
supercritical fluid
superfluid
The Six Octave Working Range 105
through-flowing substance
universal fluid
Universal Heart Beat
working substance

Created by Dale Pond. Last Modification: Thursday September 1, 2022 05:39:10 MDT by Dale Pond.