Publications and Presentations on TEST
The Expert System For Thermodynamics - A Visual Intro
Published by Prentice Hall in 2002, the book introduces TEST 6.5 (www.thermofluids.net) visually through a series of screenshots organized into ten different chapters. Covering examples from simple state evaluation through air conditioning, this visual manual reveals the power of TEST and walks the users, experts and novices alike, through effective problem solving. It is available from amazon.com and complements the online Tutorial.
Note that the CD in the book has already expired and a newer version must be ordered through the myAccount page at www.thermofluids.net.
TEST-Visual Intro from amazon.com
A Cyber-based Collaborative Framework for Thermodynamic Education and Research by Prof. S. Bhattacharjee (NSF Cyber Infrastructure Workshop on Combustion, NSF, April 19-20, 2006)
For last ten years, we have been building a comprehensive webware TEST – The Expert System for Thermodynamics, accessible from www.thermofluids.net - for thermodynamic education and practice. TEST is a visual platform where a user can look up traditional charts and tables, visualize thermodynamic systems through animations and interactive dynamic images, browse thermodynamic problems and solutions enriched with multimedia, and employ web-based thermodynamic calculators called daemons to solve most traditional thermodynamic problems on topics ranging from energy, entropy and exergy analysis of generic systems to analysis of airconditioning or combustion applications. Once a visual solution is obtained, the solution can be used as a baseline case for a myriad of parametric studies or what-if scenarios. Created with web friendly tools, TEST is platform independent, can be locally installed for speed, and is completely browser based. A TEST solution - although visual in nature - can be saved, recreated instantly, or shared through email for remote collaboration.
In this presentation, we will demonstrate some of the features of TEST through its combustion and chemical equilibrium daemons. Using this as the basis, we will introduce our future plan that can be quite relevant to the combustion community. We would like to develop the existing webware into a community based suite of tools that can be enriched by users, allowing them the ability to prototype new chemical structures and upload thermochemical specifications to a shared, Internet accessible database. New species would be tagged as experimental and then be assigned different confidence levels after passing a peer-reviewed vetting process. New species added to the database are made immediately available to all researchers in real-time for use in constructing reactant mixture compositions or in the specification of product compositions when performing an equilibrium analysis. The initial database will be populated with thermochemical data adopted from the NIST WebBook ( http://webbook.nist.gov/). Our solvers will run Java Web Service (WS) and will be made available to the Internet grid computing community. Developers of distributed and grid enabled combustion applications will be free to invoke the resources of our chemical equilibrium web service on demand. Communication to and from our web service is encapsulated in an XML framework. Each equilibrium problem will be specified in XML and passed by the developer's client application to our web service for computation. The solution will then be calculated by our web service and passed back to the client as an XML message encapsulating the moles or masses of each product species. Our web service will run in a standard open source servlet container such as Apache Tomcat ( http://tomcat.apache.org/) and be implemented using a standard open source SOAP engine such as Apache Axis ( http://ws.apache.org/axis/). We envision our implementation of a chemical equilibrium web service will amount to a plug-and-play computational software environment, freely available to developers of cyber-based combustion applications. Researchers and educators would be able to outsource most of their equilibrium computational needs to this web-based service and couple these remote procedure calls in their existing or future computational codes.TEST - The Expert System for Thermodynamics by Prof. S. Bhattacharjee (Proceedings of the 2003 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2003, ASEE)
Just as calculators revolutionized engineering problem solving, the day has come for web-delivered domain-specific software tools to bring about the next revolution in engineering education and practice. Students can not only solve a problem online, but conduct parametric studies, simulate engineering systems and gain an insight which is not possible in a traditional set up. Web delivery means the software is available anywhere, anytime from classroom to the dormitory without the hassles of installation, upgrades, or compatibility with operating systems. Such a web-based tool, TEST, The Expert System for Thermodynamics, is being developed at San Diego State University for a comprehensive education of engineering thermodynamics. TEST is more than a thermodynamic calculator. It combines hundreds of HTML pages with the power of Java programming to offer a visual environment over the web to analyze thermodynamic problems, obtain paperless solution, plot thermodynamics graphs, generate solutions and reports, spreadsheet friendly thermodynamic tables, pursue what-if scenarios after a problem is solved, and produce TEST-Code which can be stored or emailed to regenerate a solution instantly. The topics covered include state evaluation, energy, entropy and exergy analysis, closed and open cycles, refrigeration, air-conditioning, combustion and gas dynamics.
Engineering systems are introduced through animations and classified according to how the governing equations simplify - open vs. closed systems, for instance. Once a system is classified, choosing an appropriate model for the working fluid - ideal gas, real gas, phase-change model, etc. - launches a Java Applet, called a daemon in TEST, which has the knowledge of the working fluid properties as well as the simplified form of the mass, energy, entropy, and exergy equations for the particular system. The expert system not only helps one solve a problem fast and accurately but also helps detect logical inconsistencies in the specifications of the input variables. If pressure and temperature are entered for an ideal gas, the daemon will prevent a user (with appropriate warning) from specifying the gas density. But the main advantage of the visual environment is the ease with which parametric studies can be performed. Because all the variables of a problem are visually exposed, any conceivable what-if scenario can be pursued with the click of a button without a single line of programming.
Learning enhancement in Thermodynamics Classroom via use of TEST™ software in design projects and laboratory by Prof. Subha K. Kumpaty (Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2002, ASEE)
Introduced in Spring 1999 into the MSOE’s three-quarter Thermodynamics sequence, The Expert System for Thermodynamics (TEST™ software by Subrata Bhattacharjee)1 has become a great asset and an excellent tool in enhancing students’ learning of Thermodynamics fundamentals. The presenter, Dr. Kumpaty encouraged the institution-wide use of the software by obtaining a site license and has personally tested its use in classroom, design projects and laboratory for the last three years. All mechanical engineering (ME) and mechanical engineering technology (MET) students run a 100-kW steam power plant in the laboratory at various part- loads and full load in groups of 10 and conduct thorough, first and second law analyses on the plant employing the user-friendly software. They are also assigned 3 to 4 design projects in the Thermodynamics sequence, the treatment of which has become easier with the parametric studies accommodated superbly by the TEST™ software. The overall experience with this integrated teaching has been very rewarding to both faculty and students. The details of the experience, a sample problem, a sample project, laboratory activities and the effective utilization of the software/courseware are presented.
Classical Thermodynamics by Prof. S. Bhattacharjee (Expected publication date Mar, 2009)
Work is progressing on a textbook that integrates TEST with thermodynamic problem solving from the ground up. The problems and examples used in the book are already available online (click on the Problems link).