Problem 13.

146 [Difficulty: 5]

Given: Air flowing through a tube

Find: Mass flow rate assuming incompressible, adiabatic, and isothermal flow

Solution:

The given or available data is: R = 53.33 ft-lbf/lbm-°R

k = 1.4
ν = 0.000163 ft2/s
D= 1 in
L= 10 ft
f= 0.03
p1 = 15 psia
T1 = 530 °R
p2 = 14.7 psia

Equations and Computations:

The tube flow area is:
A= 0.005454 ft2
For incompressible flow, the density is:
ρ1 = 0.07642 lbm/ft3
The velocity of the flow is:
V1 = 100.56 ft/s
The mass flow rate is:
m incomp = 0.0419 lbm/s

For Fanno flow, the duct friction length is:

fL 1-2/D = 3.600
and the pressure ratio across the duct is:
p 1/p 2 = 1.0204
To solve this problem, we have to guess M 1. Based on this and the friction length,
we can determine a corresponding M 2. The pressure ratios for M 1 and M 2 will be used
to check the validity of our guess.

M1 M2 fL 1/D fL 2/D fL 1-2/D p 1/p 2

0.0800 0.0813 106.72 103.12 3.600 1.0167
0.0900 0.0919 83.50 79.90 3.600 1.0213
0.1000 0.1027 66.92 63.32 3.600 1.0266
0.1100 0.1136 54.69 51.09 3.600 1.0326
Here we used Solver to match the friction length. When both the friction length and
the pressure ratios match the constraints set above, we have our solution.
Therefore our entrance and exit Mach numbers are:
M1 = 0.0900
M2 = 0.0919
The density at 1 was already determined. The sound speed at 1 is:
c1 = 1128.8 ft/s
so the velocity at 1 is:
V1 = 101.59 ft/s
and the mass flow rate is:
m Fanno = 0.0423 lbm/s

To solve this problem for isothermal flow, we perform a calculation similar to that done
above for the Fanno flow. The only difference is that we use the friction length relation
and pressure ratio relation for isothermal flow:

M1 M2 fL 1/D fL 2/D fL 1-2/D p 1/p 2

0.0800 0.0813 105.89216 102.29216 3.600 1.0167
0.0900 0.0919 82.70400 79.10400 3.600 1.0213
0.1000 0.1027 66.15987 62.55987 3.600 1.0266
0.1100 0.1136 53.95380 50.35380 3.600 1.0326
Here we used Solver to match the friction length. When both the friction length and
the pressure ratios match the constraints set above, we have our solution.
Therefore our entrance and exit Mach numbers are:
M1 = 0.0900
M2 = 0.0919
The density and sound speed at 1 were already determined. The velocity at 1 is:
V1 = 101.59 ft/s
and the mass flow rate is:
m Isothermal = 0.0423 lbm/s

Note that in this situation, since the Mach number was low, the assumption of
incompressible flow was a good one. Also, since the Fanno flow solution shows
a very small change in Mach number, the temperature does not change much, and so
the isothermal solution gives almost identical results.