Power plants Turbomachinery

This area drains much energy and gives poor returns. Main problem is that the textbooks are very poorly written. Much of it discuss power plants in shallow manner or go too deep into practical aspects. The middle ground of numericals, problem solving is left wide open. Books like Eastop  McConkey are ones that save students in the end.

Power plant economics is quite straightforward. So it is also good for scoring. Same goes for emissions control part related to power plants.
PP economics and emissions

Power plant cycles are simple only with modifications of Rankine cycle. Cascades, combined cycles etc are very tedious. Also, often the question itself has a piece of info missing, which makes taking up these questions a big risk. On other hand, much of these questions are taken straight from textbooks, so if one has enough experience, one can handle it better(and go for 300+ total in mech)
Unfortunately, I did not have much interest in this area, so my effort is upto bare minimum.
powerplant cycles

Rankine and gas turbine cycles are better topics to invest time and effort, from  exam point of view.

Turbomachinery is another topic which I largely left, as it just drains time and effort and brings frustration. There are no universal symbols being used, no standards followed in making diagrams(velocity triangles). The subject is a big mess and unfortunately, requires lot of decoding symbols and terminologies. Sad part is technically, it is simple, but the researchers have complicated it to such an extent that it is comparable to financial securities being taught to a layman.
I can not recommend any good book for the topic, as frankly there is none. Most of the books use different symbols and sign conventions. I have tried to solve some questions and collected them topicwise.
Axial compressors, centrifugal compressors and gas turbines are subtopics one can look at.
Better to read it from a single book. Books on turbomachinery and those on fluid machinery have different symbols, so better to stick to one.
compressors and gas turbines
Steam turbines(impulse and reaction) also should be studied specific to demand of exam. No extra points for becoming non-certified PhD
compressors and steam turbines

Steam generation, boilers, draught is simple to understand and reproduce. These notes should be enough to cover the demand of the exam.

IC Engines 2

IC engines is topic that gives good returns on time and effort. Mathur Sharma is a good book that covers much of the syllabus relevant to cse. There are many who prefer Ganesan but I found former better. If one does like to dig deeper, one can go for Heywood.

IC Engines 1 was a post I made in the beginning and wanted to make it extensive in terms of coverage but I could only put up the skeleton and filling it up would be like writing a book(too much work and time required)

So, here are the questions, mostly solved, on different topics.

ESE qna 1
ESE qna 2

CSE questions topicwise
Performance calculations and balance sheets
Combustion, knocking, fuels, emissions
Carburetion and diesel injection

RAC 2

RAC 1 is a messy post as it was made in the beginning, while I was figuring out how to upload so many pages. Then I made other posts where I linked questions with pages uploaded on google drive(too much work). Now, I am hastily uploading my notes in chunks, as I am getting tired of the scanning, uploading, linking etc. So, I leave it to the recipient to further organize the material.

Refrigeration is an awesome topic as it is quite neatly laid out in books. Questions are quite straightforward and methods are simple.
Sub topics are VC cycle, components like compressors and expansion valves, refrigerants, LVHE, VA cycle, gas cycle

refrigeration QnA

Psychrometry is also a scoring area. There are some basic derivations and diagrams which are directly asked. Numericals too are easy to deal with.

psychrometry qna

Airconditioning is the tricky part. There are so many technicalities, that sometimes it is even difficult to figure out where to start. Another problem is that often, some piece of data is not given in the question. Then one has to assume some value and continue but it is risky and also creates lot of doubt in one's mind. So, better to identify if the question is familiar, otherwise no point in taking much risk.

AC qna

Gas and Fluid Dynamics GD FD

It is a fringe topic in syllabus. It appears at end of textbooks of thermodynamics and is often poorly explained/covered. Book by Prof SM Yaha on Compressible flow is the best book for the topic. Unfortunately, the symbols he has used in the book are different from those used usually by everyone, which makes it painful to go thru the topic. So, I have decoded and made notes using usual symbols and covering those topics/derivations that are relevant to the exam.
GD notes

GD has only a handful of subtopics: derivations for convergent divergent nozzles, Rayleigh flow, Fanno flow, Normal shocks
But the difficult part is remembering the derivations and formulae for these topics
sub-topicwise solved GD questions

Fluid statics/dynamics is another topic which is ill treated by the exam. The subject as such is extensive which is clear if one sees the size of any textbook for the same(RK Bansal, Frank M White). So, it takes lot of time and returns are poor. So, I made notes in QnA form taking stuff from ESE questions.
Fluids notes ESE QnA

Some solved question from CSE on fluids