Chapter 2 Systems Transforming Materials, Energy, and Information

Major Topics

One definition of a system is a combination of interacting elements or parts forming a more complex whole that is considered as a single unit.

Technological objects can be viewed as systems transforming available inputs into desired outputs.

In technological systems the inputs and outputs can be broadly classified as energy, materials, and information.

Chapter 2 Overview

• A system is a group of objects, forming a network, to achieve a common purpose.

• A technological device regardless of size or complexity can be considered to be a system.

• A system is identified by an imaginary boundary that encompasses or encloses the system separating it from everything else in its environment. The system interacts with its environment by inputs and outputs that are identified at the system boundary.

• The system function is recognized by the transformation of inputs into outputs.

• Inputs and outputs of a technological system can be classified as material, energy, or information.

• Material refers to matter having the property of mass.

• Energy is the ability to do work. Energy exists in various forms such kinetic, potential, and chemical. Power and force are related to energy and may also appear as system inputs and outputs.

• Matter and energy are conserved.

• Information, strictly speaking is energy, in the form of data or signals and is given a special designation in a technological system.

• Some engineering fields can be distinguished by the types of transformations of energy, materials, and information with which they are primarily involved.

• Different modes and phases of system operation can involve different inputs and outputs.

• Technological systems are frequently characterized by concepts of efficiency defined by a ratio of desired outputs to necessary inputs provided at some cost to the user.