Tutorials

Use it when: You are asked for a property at one condition: quality, specific volume, enthalpy, or which phase the substance is in.

1. Analysis: choose a single-state problem.
2. Substances: name the substance (for example Water, R-134a, Air).
3. Schematic: place one control volume. A closed container with no flow still counts as the physical system.
4. Specifications: add one state and enter the two independent properties you were given (for example p and T, or T and quality).
5. Specifications: mark the property you want as to-be-found.
6. Solve: AE looks the state up in the property tables and shows the interpolation it used.

If you only know one property, AE will say one more independent property is required — that is the same rule you use by hand.

Use it when: A closed mass expands, is compressed, is heated or is stirred, going from state 1 to state 2, or through a chain of such processes.

1. Analysis: choose a process between states, and say how many states there are.
2. Substances: assign the substance to the control volume.
3. Schematic: place the control volume and add the heat and work ports the problem describes (a piston does boundary work, a paddle does shaft work).
4. Specifications: fill in state 1 and whatever you know of state 2.
5. Specifications: add the process condition — constant pressure, constant volume, isothermal, polytropic, adiabatic — and any piston conditions such as stops or a spring.
6. Specifications: mark the unknowns (Q, W, T2, ...) as to-be-found.
7. Solve: AE applies the energy and entropy balances for the closed system and shows every valid path to the answer.
8. For a chain, repeat the process entry for 1→2, 2→3, and so on; AE carries the end state forward.

Enter what the problem states, not what you have already derived — AE derives the rest and shows the steps.

Use it when: A power cycle, a refrigeration cycle, or any closed loop of processes.

1. Analysis: choose a cycle.
2. Substances: assign the working substance.
3. Schematic: lay out the cycle — for a closed cycle one control volume stepping through the states, for a plant the components in a loop.
4. Specifications: enter each leg as a process with its condition (isentropic, constant pressure, isothermal, ...).
5. Specifications: give the known state properties and the known heat or work terms.
6. Specifications: mark net work, thermal efficiency or coefficient of performance as to-be-found.
7. Solve: AE closes the loop with the cycle identity that the properties must return to their starting values, then reports the per-leg and net results.

Because the cycle must close, you usually need fewer givens than legs — AE tells you when it has enough.

Use it when: Turbines, compressors, pumps, nozzles, valves, heat exchangers, mixing chambers, or a whole plant, operating steadily.

1. Analysis: choose steady flow.
2. Substances: name the substance in each stream.
3. Schematic: place one control volume per device, add inlet and outlet ports, and wire the streams between devices.
4. Schematic: add heat and work ports where the device exchanges them.
5. Specifications: enter the inlet and outlet state properties and the mass flow rates you were given.
6. Specifications: add device assumptions — adiabatic, isentropic, negligible kinetic and potential energy, no pressure drop.
7. Specifications: mark the outputs you need (power, exit temperature, efficiency, ...).
8. Solve: AE writes the steady mass, energy and entropy balances for each control volume and solves the network.

Direction matters: mark each interaction as in or out. AE uses that sign, so you never have to guess the sign convention.

Use it when: A tank being charged or discharged, a vessel blowing down, a system warming up over an interval.

1. Analysis: choose transient.
2. Substances: assign the substance.
3. Schematic: place the control volume and add the ports that carry mass in or out during the interval, plus any heat or work port.
4. Specifications: enter the initial state inside the control volume and the state of the entering or leaving stream.
5. Specifications: enter the final state as far as you know it, plus the mass or amount transferred if given.
6. Specifications: add the interval assumptions — rigid, adiabatic, uniform state, constant inlet condition.
7. Specifications: mark the final temperature, final mass, heat transfer or work as to-be-found.
8. Solve: AE integrates the mass and energy balances over the interval and shows each step.

The stream state and the state inside the control volume are different states — enter both.