UNIVERSITY OF MALTA FACULTY OF ENGINEERING B.ENG. (HONS.

) COURSE YEAR I SEMESTER 1 JANUARY 2007 SESSION OF EXAMINATIONS ENR 1108 Engineering Science: Mechanical 0915 1115 hours This paper contains five questions. You are to choose 1 question from Section A and 2 questions from Section B. 26th January 2007

Stationery:

Use of calculators is allowed.

SECTION A Thermodynamics 1. (a) The solar panel of a solar water heater receives radiation at the rate of 800 W per square metre of panel area. It is required to heat 100 litres of water entering the panel from 20 C to 75 C in not more than 2 hours. Calculate the minimum area of solar panels required, assuming that all the solar radiation received by the panels is used totally and solely to heat the water. Take the specific heat of water as 4.2 kJ/kg K. (16 marks) (b) A tank of volume 0.75 m3 contains a gas at an absolute pressure of 15 bar and at a temperature of 27 C. The following are the relevant properties of the gas: specific heat at constant pressure cp = 845 J/kg K, specific heat at constant volume cv = 650 J/kg K, gas constant R = 195 J/kg K. If half the initial mass of gas is let out of the tank, calculate the final mass, pressure and temperature of the gas remaining in the tank, assuming that the expansion of this remaining gas is adiabatic. (18 marks)

2.

(a) A fuel tanker weighs 2000 tonnes when empty. It can carry 10 million litres of oil of relative density 0.84. What is the volume of sea-water displaced if the density of sea-water is 1.026 Mg/m3? The captain of this tanker has been told to sail the vessel into shallow waters, where the depth of water is such that the vessel can only displace 8000 m3 of water, calculate the minimum quantity of oil that the captain must discharge at the last port of call before it can sail into these waters. (16 marks) (b) An oil pump has an aluminium alloy piston with a nominal diameter of 100 mm working in a cast-iron cylinder. The radial clearance between piston and cylinder cannot be less than 0.01 mm and not more than 0.1 mm for the proper running of the pump. Calculate the maximum temperature range over which the pump can operate correctly. The coefficient of linear expansion for the aluminium alloy and cast iron are 25 10-6 and 10 10-6. (18 marks)
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SECTION B - Mechanics 3. Figure 1 shows a simple winch setup to lift weights above ground level. The winch consists of a truss, a pulley and rope. The rope is pulled at an angle of 30o to the vertical.

Figure 1 (a) What are the two main assumptions used in the initial basic design of a truss ? (4 marks) (b) Draw the free body diagram for the truss shown in Figure 1. (6 marks) (c) Draw the free body diagram for the pulley. (1 mark) (d) Calculate the reactions at the supports A and B. (4 marks) (e) Calculate the forces in members EG, FG, DF and BC (9 marks) (f) Describe the tensile test for mild steel. In your reply include the sketch and explanation of the resulting stress/strain curve. (9 marks)

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4.

(a) With the help of a sketch describe the differential wheel and axle. In your reply you should include a description of the setup, the derivation for velocity ratio of the machine and one common application. (12 marks) (b) Two parallel shafts S1 and S2 are to be connected by spur gears. Wheels A and B form a compound pair which can slide along but rotate with shaft S1, wheels C and D are rigidly attached to shaft S2 and the compound pair A,B may be moved so that A engages with C or B engages with D. The number of teeth for gears A, B, C, D are 13, 17, 36 and 32 respectively. (i) raw a sketch of the gear setup. (6 marks) (ii) If shaft S1 rotates at a speed of 1500 r.p.m. what are the two possible rotational speeds of shaft S2. (3 marks)

(iii) Shaft S1 is connected directly to an electric motor through a flexible coupling. The torque output of the motor at a speed of 1500 r.p.m. is 50 Nm. Calculate the possible torque outputs that can be achieved at shaft S2 given that the efficiency for both gear engagements is 75 %. (8 marks) (iv) Describe the term overhauling in a simple machine. In your answer mention whether the above gearbox overhauls and what can be done to prevent overhauling. (4 marks)

5.

(a) A rocketcraft of mass 1700 kg including a payload is coasting in space when the holding bolts are broken by an explosion to release the payload rearwards in the line of flight. The speed of the payload falls by 20 m/s and the craft gains speed by 6 m/s. Find the mass of the payload. (12 marks) (b) A bullet of mass 17 g (travelling horizontally at 900 m/s) strikes a wooden block target of mass 20 kg and remains embedded in the wood after impact. The target is suspended by a light string of length 1 m. At the moment of impact the target is stationary. Calculate: (i) The horizontal velocity of the target and bullet immediately after impact. (4 marks) (ii) The tension in the string immediately after impact. (6 marks) (iii) The Kinetic energy lost on impact. (6 marks) (iv) The maximum angle turned through by the string. (5 marks)
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