Week 1 review questions
Practice with scientific notation and significant figures
Work, energy, and power
Conservation of energy animations: roller coaster and downhill skier
Conservation of energy and children's blocks
Pulleys and other simple machines
Week 2 review questions
Practice using the metric system
First Law of Thermodynamics
Heat flow: conduction, convection, and radiation
Heat flow in the context of thermos bottles
Carnot engine (and a simulation)
Review specific heat, latent heat, and heat transfer mechanisms
Refrigerators at the How Stuff Works site
Air-source heat pumps
Optional:
Heat flow in the context of firewalking
Week 3 review questions
Otto cycle (four pages)
P-V diagram for the Otto engine cycle
Entropy and the second law of thermodynamics
Optional:
Entire article on car engines
Two-stroke engines
Diesel cycle
P-V diagram for the Diesel engine cycle
Diesel advantages and disadvantages
Alternative fuels: biodiesel, natural gas, ethanol, and methanol
Corn-based ethanol's energy balance
Biodiesel from jatropha: articles one and two
Optional:
Clean diesel vehicles running on low-sulfur diesel fuel
Two-stroke Diesel cycle
Recent collaboration to produce biodiesel from algae
More on alternative fuels
Petroleum refining
Week 7 review questions
How a battery works: links one and two
A battery can be used to run an electric motor
Electric generators and electromagnetic induction
Electric vehicles
EVs are not yet a commercial success
New EVs
Better Place's plan that EV drivers will swap out for new batteries
Optional:
Long magazine article about Better Place
Better Place Web site
Video about new and old EVs
Nissan Leaf EV
Article on improving battery technology
Week 8 review questions
How a hybrid electric vehicle works
Ford Escape hybrid
Return of the Honda Insight
Initial announcement of the Chevrolet Volt
Ongoing work on the Volt (including a video and a slide show)
Volt skeptics
Regenerative braking can involve capacitors
Optional:
More on the 2010 Honda Insight
Ford's take on the Escape hybrid
More on plug-in hybrids
Ultracapacitors
EVs that run on ultracapacitors instead of batteries
Week 9 review questions
How fuel cells work
Fuel cell animation and longer video
Several types of fuel cell
Fuel processors (a.k.a. reformers)
Microbial fuel cells that use raw sewage or even dirt as fuel
General Motors' Hy-Wire fuel cell car (and its successor, the the Chevrolet Equinox)
Honda's FCX Clarity, schematic diagram of how it works, and a review
Optional:
Fuel cell tutorial
Another discussion of fuel cells
More fuel cell info from Honda
Cross-country Mercedes fuel cell car drive
Fuel cell powered motorcycles and trucks
Q&A with the creators of dirt-powered microbial fuel cells
Week 10
The hydrogen economy
A skeptical look at the hydrogen economy
2009 update on hydrogen infrastructure in California
Optional:
Another recent update on hydrogen infrastructure
PHY 110: Previous Links
Written by Chris Magri
URL: http://academic.umf.maine.edu/~magri/phy110c/prevLinks.html