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| | [No title] (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-07) |
 | | Introduction In applied physics, an adiabatic process is defined as any process that is asymptotically isentropic (thermodynamically reversible), that is, whose total entropy generated tends towards zero in some appropriate limit (typically, of low speed and/or improved isolation of the system). |
 | | The existence of adiabatic processes is an everyday fact, exemplified by the ballistic motion of a projectile in a near-vacuum environment (e.g. |
 | | The degree of adiabaticity of any process can be defined as equal to its quality factor Q, in the sense used in electrical and mechanical engineering, i.e., the ratio between the amount of free energy involved in carrying out the process, and the amount of this energy that gets dissipated to heat. |
| www.cise.ufl.edu /research/revcomp/Frank-MLPD-03.doc (2032 words) |
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