PROBLEMS ON THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS

1. A 40-kg casting (CP = 0.5 kJkg-1K-1) at a temperature of 450C is quenched in 150 kg of oil (CP
= 2.5 kJkg-1K-1) at 25C. If there are no heat losses, what is the change in entropy of (a) the
casting, (b) the oil, and (c) both considered together?
2. A thermoelectric device cools a small refrigerator and discards heat to the surroundings at 25C.
The maximum electric power for which the device is designed is 100 W. The heat load on the
refrigerator is 350 W. What is the minimum temperature that can be maintained in the
refrigerator compartment?
3. A Carnot heat engine operating on air accepts 50 kJ/kg of heat and rejects 40% of this amount.
Calculate the temperatures of the hot and cold reservoir if the maximum specific volume is 10
m3/kg and the pressure after the isothermal expansion is 200 kPa. Assume air is considered an
ideal gas for which CP = 1.003 J/g-K.
4. As part of a senior design project, a design team proposed a process in which 1 mole of a gas
(considered ideal, CP = 2.5R, where R is the ideal gas constant) goes from 100°C and 1 bar to
1,000°C and 5 bar. In the process, 6,000 J of work is performed by the fluid, and heat is
exchanged with a large heat reservoir which is at a constant temperature of 1,100°C.
a. Calculate the change in internal energy and entropy of the system.
b. Calculate the heat transferred between the design system and its surroundings.
c. Is this process feasible?
5. An enterprising young engineer living near Hot Springs, Arkansas wants to use the water (with
a constant CP = 4.18 kJ/kg-K) from a 95°C hot spring at a rate of 0.2 kg/sec to power a heat
engine that will power his air compressor, taking in ambient air at a temperature of 23°C.
Determine the maximum theoretical power output for this particular heat engine.
6. In a steady state flow process, 1 mol/s of air at 600 K and 1 atm is continuously mixed with 2
mol/s of air at 450 K and 1 atm. The product stream is at 400 K and 1 atm. Determine the rate
of heat transfer and the rate of entropy generation for the process. Assume that air is an ideal
gas with CP = 3.5R, that the surroundings are at 300 K, and that changes in kinetic and potential
energy are negligible.
7. Find the lost work for the two types of simple heat exchanger, whose hot stream has an inlet
and outlet temperatures of 400 K and 350 K, respectively, a cold stream with an inlet
temperature of 300 K, and a minimum temperature of 10 K difference between flowing streams.
Assume both streams are ideal gases with CP = 3.5R. Take T = 300 K.