First law applied to flow processes

The earlier development of the first law of thermodynamics was for a system of fixed mass. To
generalize it to a flow-through device, we identify a control volume that encompasses the device –
a turbine, for example, including its casing, its internal component and, of course, the fluid enclosed
inside. A control volume, as defined earlier, is a fixed volume in space, and does not correspond to
the same mass of fluid. Fluid enters continuously through the inlet duct, bringing mass and energy
with it. There are work and heat interactions across the control surface (through a rotating shaft in
this example) and the fluid leaves through the exit duct presumably with thermodynamic properties
different from that at the inlet. The job of the first law of thermodynamics then would be to relate
the heat and work transfers to the energy of the fluid in the control volume, and to its properties at
the inlet and exit stations.

(a)

(b) (c)

We consider the mass of fluid identified in red (at time t) to include the fluid inside the
control volume and the portion of the flow in the inlet pipe that enters the device in time dt. At a
later time t + dt, the same mass of fluid takes the shape shown by green, i.e. it fills the volume of
the device and the portion of fluid that moves out into the exit duct. We then apply the equation for
the first law

where we have retained the KE component of the total energy (for fluid in motion), although
neglecting the contribution of potential energy is perfectly valid for gas turbine applications. The
energy of the fluid at the initial time would be that in the control volume E_cv, plus the amount in
the entry duct E_entry. Similarly, at the later time t+dt, the energy of the fluid in the control volume
is E_cv + \Delta E_cv, plus the energy of the fluid in the exit duct E_exit. The net change in energy
over time dt is thus given by

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 \Delat E = \Delta E_cv + E_exit – E_entry

which then gives us the control volume form of the first law of thermodynamics

Compared to the systems formulation of the first law, the additional term on the left hand side
represents the net flux of energy entering the control volume due to the mass flow crossing the
control surface. ON the right hand side, the change in energy contained in the fixed-in-space control
volume replaces the change in energy of the fixed mass of fluid in a system.

For flow processes, we often write in terms of the time rate of change of energy, heat and
work. If dQ/dt is the rate of heat transfer to the control volume, including the effects of heat loss,
active cooling and combustion, and dW/dt is the rate of work done by the fluid in the control
volume, including shaft work, flow work and any other form of work done, then

Here, the rate of energy entering or exiting the control volume can be written in terms of the
respective mass flow rates as

where e1 and e2 are the specific energy of the gas at the entry and exit stations, and dE_cv/dt is the
rate of accumulation of energy in the control volume, which is identically zero for steady state
operation of the device. In such cases, the fluid properties (p, v, T, e, etc.) are invariant in time at
each and every point in the device, and its inlet and exit ducts. Thus, there is no change in the total
mass in the control volume. The mass entering in time dt should exactly match the mass exiting
during that time interval. In other words, thep time rate of mass entering and leaving the control
volume are exactly identical.

Mass balance for a steady state flow device, thus, gives us

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Also, the total energy in the control volume is independent of time, which implies that energy
(either in the form of work and heat interactions, or energy carried by the fluid) entering and leaving
the control volume are exactly equal in magnitude.

Examples of steady state operation of an aircraft engine would be during level cruise flight
or during steady climb or descent, when the flight velocity in constant and the engine is producing a
thrust that is invariant in time. Other scenarios involving engine start-up ad shut-dowm, as well as
variable flight speed operation during take off and landing will not qualify strictly as steady state
operation of the engine. As you can imagine, steady state analysis is far easier than accounting for
additional variation of properties in time. Fortunately, the majority of engine operations occur in
steady state mode, during extended cruise phase of the flight. It is therefore logical and practical to
perform steady state analysis of an aircraft engine and its components.

Let’s now look a bit closer at the work interactions, and split it into the flow work that is
inherent in a flow-thorugh device, and other kinds of work including the most important shaft work.
These other kinds of work are all grouped together as external work W_ext. The flow work done at
the inlet station 1 by the fluid pressure p1 in pushing mass dm1 into the control volume in time dt is
–p1*v1*dm1, with a negative sign following the sign convention. Similarly, the flow work done at
the exit station 2 by the fluid at pressure p2 in displacing mass dm2 out of the control volume in the
same time interval dt is +p2*v2*dm2. Once again, sign convention dictates that the work done by
the fluid inside the CV as positive. Obviously, dm1 = dm2 for a steady state operation. Then, we
can write,

Combining all the stuff together, we get, for a steady state flow-through device,

The specific energy is a combination of internal energy, kinetic energy and potential energy
(retaining it for the sake of generality) per unit mass. Substituting in the above equation leads to

or in an alternate form,
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where h is the enthalpy of the fluid. The first term on the right-hand side is the ratio of heat
transferred to the control volume per unit time and the mass flow rate per unit time. It represents the
amount of heat added to or taken away from a unit mass of fluid in the control volume. Similarly,
the second term on the right-hand side corresponds to the external work (other than the inherent
flow work) done by/on a unit mass of the gas inside the flow-through device. As mentioned earlier,
we will neglect changes in elevation of the fluid in an aircraft engine application, and define the
total enthalpy of the fluid as a combination of the static enthalpy and its kinetic energy. The static
enthalpy is, as defined earlier, a sum of the internal energy and the capacity of the fluid to do flow
work.

Total enthalpy is then a true measure of the total energy stored in a fluid in motion. Note that all
quantities are written in terms of per unit mass, and have units J/kg.

We can now write the first law of thermodynamics in a control volume framework in a more
compact formulation

The first equation equates the change in total enthalpy of the fluid between the entry and exit
stations with the heat and work transfers per unit time. All the terms are written in terms of rate of
the respective interactions. The second equation writes the same energy balance in terms of per unit
mass of the fluid flowing through the control volume.

(a) (b)

Example of flow through a nozzle, what we have seen before (a converging nozzle) and a more
advanced one called the bell-shaped converging-diverging nozzle usually for high-speed
applications. The first one can accelerate the flow to a maximaum of Mach 1, whereas the latter is

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used to achieve supersonic or even hypersonic exit velocities, for example in rockets used for space
launch. In either case, there is no shaft or any other kind of external work done on or by the fluid in
the control volume. At times, at least for the low speed applications, it is also reasonable to assume
that there is no heat loss from the nozzle. Without any other form of heat addition (e.g. combustion,
etc.) we can assume Q = 0. Then first law just states that the total enthalpy of the fluid is constant
between the entry and the exit stations.

The total enthalpy is a sum of the enthalpy of the lfuid and its kinetic energy. The function of a
nozzle is to increase the velocity or the kinetic energy of the fluid. This is done at the expense of
reducing the enthalpy of the gas, which is a combination of its internal energy and the capacity to
do flow work. Thus the gas pressure, temperature and density decreases through the expansion
process in a nozzle, while its velocity and Mach number increases. The increase in Mach number
outweighing the increasing in velocity.

There are certain similarities of the above expression with Bernoulli’s equation if we write it as

and replace specific volume with the inverse of fluid density. It will be identical to the Bernoulli's
principle (without the gravity term) if we drop the internal energy and assume density is constant.
These simplifications take us to incompressible flows, where changes in internal energy or
equivalently changes in temperature are small compared to the changes in the static pressure and
dynamic pressure. Thus Bernoulli's equation is identical to the conservation of energy written for
incompressible flows, and one of the simplest application is to a garden hose, where a reduction in
the exit area (by manually distorting a plastic pipe) – equivalent to a nozzle – can easily increase the
velocity of the water jet, making it reach farther out in the garden.

When the fluid or gas in compressible, we have to worry about the changes in density and
temperature, along with the pressure drop that accompanies the expansion of the gas in a nozzle. In
a compressible flow, the increase in velocity of the gas is not just because of a drop in the pressure
head, rather the change in the kinetic energy is at the expense of its enthalpy. Enthalpy of a flowing
gas, as we have said before, is the true measure of the energy stored in it (apart from the
macroscopic forms of kinetic and potential energies).

The flow in aircraft engines is almost always compressible. The incoming Mach number is close to
0.8 in flight and the lowest value is possibly in the range of 0.2 in a combustor. We will actually
encounter much higher velocities when we get into the rotating turbomachinery. Therefore, we will
not be dealing with incompressible flows much in this course. A few exceptions would include the
case of IC engines, which will be in the low speed incompressible range, but then these are
idealized as piston-cylinder geometry and do not have much of a flow. So, the thing to keep in mind
is that Bernoulli's equation is not to be used in any of the analysis as part of this course.

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How to explain the need for CD nozzle in terms of changes in density, pressure and velocity?

Bernoulli's equation is only for inviscid flows, but we didn't make any assumption like that in
deriving the energy equation, why?

Heat exchanger application

A heat exchanger is a device used to transfer heat from one fluid to another, naturally from a hotter
fluid to a cooler fluid. In a typical heat exchanger, the coolant passes thorugh small tubes over
which the hot gas flows and gets cooled down. A schematic is shown below, where the coolant
flow is from left to right and the hot fluid enters from the top and exits at the bottom.

Similar concepts are applied to active cooling several aircraft engine components. These include
the combustor casings and the nozzle walls, where the walls enclosing the hot combustion products
is to be maintained below the material limits. It is also crucial to cool the rotating blades of a
turbine, where the coolant is fed through the hub and passes through small tubes inside the blade
geometry. There are also other configurations, which involve ejecting the coolant through minute
holes in the blad surface. The cool fluid forms a thin layer between the hot gas and the blade
surface, eventually getting mixed with the combustion products.

Heat exchanger configurations, as discussed above, usually have separate entry and exit ports for
the two fluids exchanging heat. The generalized first law of thermodynamics presented in the
control volume framework for such a scenario is given by

where the mass flow rates at all the exit and entry stations and the corresponding total enthalpies are
summed over to calculate the amount of total enthalpy of the fluid entering and exiting the control
volume. On the right hand side, we have the heat and external work interactions, as per first law
applied to steady state flow processes.
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We also need to apply mass balance in the form

once again summed over all the entry and exit stations. If multiple fluids are involved, as in the
present example, we have to apply the above mass balance equation to each fluid (individually) to
avoid accumulation inside the flow-through device operating under steady state condition. We thus
have,

The control volume is chosen to enclose the entire heat exchanger including its casing, internal
tubings and, of course, the hot and cold fluids inside. The purpose of applying first law to this
configuration is to relate the fluid properties (mainly temperature) at the entry and exit stations, and
thus quantify the amount of heat transferred between the hot gas and the coolant. We will assume
that all the heat transfer is happening inside the CV and very little between the heat exchanger as a
whole and the ambient air (Q = 0). Also, there are no shaft work or any other external work
interaction between the CV and outside (W_ext = 0). Once again, external work interactions do not
include the flow work, which is required to drive the two fluid through their respective passages
inside the heat exchanger.

Application of the generalized form of the first law of thermodynamics for the current configuration
thus results in

which equates the change in total enthalpy of the hot fluid between its exit (4) and entry (3) stations
to that of the coolant between stations 2 and 1. Realizing that the inlet and exit velocities of the
coolant are comparable if the entry and exhaust ducts are of comparable diameter, we have

We can thus neglect the changes in the kinetic energy of the fluid during the heat transfer process.
The same is expected to be true for the hot fluid that is being cooled in the exchanger, and we are
left with a relation between the enthalpies.

which essentially says that the loss in enthalpy of the hot fluid, or equivalently, the drop in its
temperature is given by the net change in enthalpy of the coolant in the process.
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First law applied to unsteady processes

In situations where a steady state assumption is not appropriate, we have to account for the
accumulation of mass and energy a flow-through device. The conservation laws for control volume
analysis are to appropriately modified. Namely,

where m_cv is the mass of the fluid inside the control volume at any time and E_cv includes the
internal, kinetic and potential (dropped for aircraft propulsion applications) energies of the enclosed
fluid. The above form is written in terms of the rates of heat and work transfers, along with the rates
of entry and exit of total enthalpy, together contributing to the rate of change of energy in the
control volume.

An alternate form can be written by integrating over a period of time.

where the net accumulation of energy in the CV is due to the total amount of heat transferred, the
net work done and the time integrated values of total enthalpies entering and exiting the control
volume.

Bottle filling process

Let us consider the example of a bottle getting filled by being connected to a reservoir. We will
assume that the volume of gas filling up the bottle is small compared to the reservoir volume such
that the process does not alter the properties of the reservoir gas appreciably. Alternately, the gas
may be supplied continuously through a pipe, and the bottle is connected briefly to fill it up. The
state of the gas in the pipe is denoted by subscript ‘p’:

with pressure p, temperature T, specific internal energy u, specific volume v, specific enthalpy h
and velocity of the fluid V. Initially, the bottle contains m1 mass of gas with properties denoted by
subscript 1 and zero velocity
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The valve is opened and the gas from the pipe fills into the bottle, and the process continues until
there is m2 mass of gas in the bottle at a final state denoted by subscript 2:

We will work out the change in energy of the gas in the bottle and the work and heat interactions
involved in this bottle filling process -- first using the systems approach and then show the
equivalent control volume analysis. A system is defined as the imaginary envelop of all the gas (in
the bottle, the pipe and the connecting tube) that will finally end up in the bottle at the end of the
process.

The initial energy of the system is a combination of that of the initial mass of gas in the bottle, plus
the energy of the gas to enter the bottle.

where m2-m1 mass of gas occupies the pipe and the connecting tube and is at the conditions of the
pipe state. The final energy of the system, when it finally ends up in the bottle with properties
corresponding to state 2.

and the change in energy of the system is thus given by

The gas in the system initially occupies a larger volume V1, and it is collapsed to a smaller volume
V2 during the bottle filling process. The displacement work done by the surrounding, i.e. the gas in
the pipe that pushes the system into the bottle is given by

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where the work done on the system is taken with a negative sign is as per the sign convention. The
change in volume is also equal to the extra volume that is initially occupied by the gas outside the
bottle, and is equal to the extra mass getting into the bottle times its specific volume corresponding
to the conditions prevailing in the pipe.

We can now apply the first law of thermodynamics to our system

which gives the total amount of heat transferred between the bottle and its surroundings, during the
unsteady process as

In an alternate approach, we define the bottle as our control volume, and apply the unsteady form of
the first law of thermodynamics integrated over the time duration of the bottle filling process.

where the net change in the energy of the gas in the control volume is given by the heat and work
interactions, along with the energy entering and exiting the control volume. There is no external
work interaction in the form of shaft work or stirring (paddle wheel) work in this case. Also, there is

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no mass leaving the control volume during this process. As for the mass entering the bottle, the
amount of energy (total enthalpy) associated with it is given by

and the net change in the energy of the control volume is simply

We can thus compute the total heat transferred between the bottle and its surroundings as

and it is identical to the result obtained using the systems approach.

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