Practice questions

1 Study all concepts in chapter 6, 7 and 8. Also those ones we covered in chapter 9
2 Second law of thermodynamics
(a) An air-conditioning system is used to maintain a house at a constant temperature of 20 C.
The house is gaining heat from outdoors at a rate of 20,000 kJ/h, and the heat generated in
the house from the people, lights, and appliances amounts to 8000 kJ/h. For a COP of 2.5,
determine the required power input to this air-conditioning system.
(b) A heat engine receives heat from a heat source at 1200 C and rejects heat to a heat sink at
50 C. The heat engine does maximum work equal to 500 kJ. Determine the heat supplied to
the heat engine by the heat source and the heat rejected to the heat sink.
(c) A heat pump with a COP of 2.8 is used to heat an air-tight house. When running, the heat
pump consumes 5 kW of power. If the temperature in the house is 78C when the heat pump
is turned on, how long will it take for the heat pump to raise the temperature of the house
to 22C? Is this answer realistic or optimistic? Explain. Assume the entire mass within the
house (air, furniture, etc.) is equivalent to 1500 kg of air.
(d) A heat pump supplies heat energy to a house at the rate of 140,000 kJ/h when the house is
maintained at 25 C. Over a period of one month, the heat pump operates for 100 hours to
transfer energy from a heat source outside the house to inside the house. Consider a heat
pump receiving heat from two different outside energy sources. In one application the heat
pump receives heat from the outside air at 0 C. In a second application the heat pump
receives heat from a lake having a water temperature of 10 C. If electricity costs R2/kWh,
determine the maximum money saved by using the lake water rather than the outside air as
the outside energy source.
(e) Cold water at 10 C enters a water heater at the rate of 0.02 cubic meter/min and leaves the
water heater at 50 C. The water heater receives heat from a heat pump that receives heat
from a heat source at 0 C. (a) Assuming the water to be an incompressible liquid that does
not change phase during heat addition, determine the rate of heat supplied to the water, in
kJ/s. (b) Assuming the water heater acts as a heat sink having anaverage temperature of 30
C, determine the minimum power supplied to the heat pump, in kW.
3 Entropy
(a) Air enters a nozzle steadily at 280 kPa and 77 C with a velocity of 50 m/s and exits at 85 kPa
and 320 m/s. The heat losses from the nozzle to the surrounding medium at 20 C are
estimated to be 3.2 kJ/kg. Determine (a) the exit temperature and (b) the total entropy
change for this process.
(b) Air is compressed by an adiabatic compressor from 95 kPa and 278C to 600 kPa and 277 C.
Assuming variable specific heats and neglecting the changes in kinetic and potential
energies, determine (a) the isentropic efficiency of the compressor and (b) the exit
temperature of air if the process were reversible.
(c) An ordinary egg can be approximated as a 5.5 cm diameter sphere. The egg is initially at a
uniform temperature of 8 C and is dropped into boiling water at 97 C. Takingthe properties
of the egg to be density as 1020 kg/cubic meter and cp 3.32 kJ/kg·8C, determine (a) how
much heat is transferred to the egg by the time the average temperature of the egg rises to
70 C and (b) the amount of entropy generation associated with this heat transfer process.
(d) Compressed air is one of the key utilities in manufacturing facilities, and the total installed
power of compressed- air systems in the United States is estimated to be about 20 million
horsepower. Assuming the compressors to operate at full load during one-third of the time
on average and the average motor efficiency to be 90 percent, determine how much energy
and money will be saved per year if the energy consumed by compressors is reduced by 5
percent as a result of implementing some conservation measures. Take the unit cost of
electricity to be $0.11/kWh.
(e) The compressed-air requirements of a plant at sea level are being met by a 90-hp
compressor that takes in air at the local atmospheric pressure of 101.3 kPa and the average
temperature of 158C and compresses it to 1100 kPa. An investigation of the compressed-air
system and the equipment using the compressed air reveals that compressing the air to
750 kPa is sufficient for this plant. The compressor operates 3500 h/yr at 75 percent of the
rated load and is driven by an electric motor that has an efficiency of 94 percent. Taking
the price of electricity to be $0.105/kWh, determine the amount of energy and money
saved as a result of reducing the pressure of the compressed air.
(f) A rigid, 30-L steam cooker is arranged with a pressure relief valve set to release vapor and
maintain the pressure once the pressure inside the cooker reaches 150 kPa. Initially, this
cooker is filled with water at 175 kPa with a quality of 10 percent. Heat is now added until
the quality inside the cooker is 40 percent. Determine the minimum entropy change of the
thermal energy reservoir supplying this heat. Use steam tables.
4 Gas Power cycles
(a) A gas turbine for an automobile is designed with a regenerator. Air enters the compressor of
this engine at 100 kPa and 30 C. The compressor pressure ratio is 10; the maximum
cycle temperature is 800 C; and the cold air stream leaves the regenerator 10 C cooler than
the hot air stream at the inlet of the regenerator. Assuming both the compressor and the
turbine to be isentropic, determine the rates of heat addition and rejection for this cycle
when it produces 115 kW. Use constant specific heats at room temperature
(b) The idea of using gas turbines to power automobiles was conceived in the 1930s, and
considerable research was done in the 1940s and 1950s to develop automotive gas turbines
by major automobile manufacturers such as the Chrysler and Ford corporations in the
United States and Rover in the United Kingdom. The world’s first gas turbine-powered
automobile, the 200-hp Rover Jet 1, was built in 1950 in the United Kingdom. This was
followed by the production of the Plymouth Sport Coupe by Chrysler in 1954 under the
leadership of G. J. Huebner. Several hundred gas-turbine-powered Plymouth cars were built
in the early 1960s for demonstration purposes and were loaned to a select group of people
to gather field experience. The users had no complaints other than slow acceleration. But
the cars were never mass-produced because of the high production (especially material)
costs and the failure to satisfy the provisions of the 1966 Clean Air Act. A gas-turbine
powered Plymouth car built in 1960 had a turbine inlet temperature of 17008F, a pressure
ratio of 4, and a regenerator effectiveness of 0.9. Using isentropic efficiencies of 80 percent
for both the compressor and the turbine, determine the thermal efficiency of this car. Also,
determine the mass flow rate of air for a net power output of 130 hp. Assume the ambient
air to be at 510 R and 14.5 psia.
(c) Dual cycle IC engines