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Thermal Energy





INTERNAL ENERGY

Internal Energy – the sum of all microscopic forms of energy of a system. It is related to the molecular structure and the degree of molecular activity and may be viewed as the sum of kinetic and potential energies of the molecules; it is comprised of the following types of energies:1





DEFINITIONS


System of N particles

According to the Equipartition Theorem , it is possible to define thermal energy. In a system of ''N'' molecules, each with f degrees of freedom, and if there are no other (non-quadratic) temperature-dependent forms of energy, then the total thermal energy of the system is:

:U_{thermal} = N \cdot f \cdot rac{1}{2}kT

To note, ''Uthermal'' is almost never the total energy of a system; for instance, there can be static energy that doesn't change with temperature, such as Bond Energy or rest energy (E=mc2).

Other definitions

Thermal energy per particle is sometimes called the average translational kinetic energy possessed by free particles given by equipartition of energy. Thermal energy – Hyperphysics

Thermal energy is the difference between the Internal Energy of an object and the amount that it would have at Absolute Zero . It includes the quantity of Kinetic Energy due to the motion of the internal particles of an object, and is increased by Heating and reduced by Cooling .

In a Monatomic Ideal Gas , the thermal energy is exactly given by the kinetic energy of the constituent particles.


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