Engineering Thermodynamics

Assignment-I
B.Tech 3rd semester
Department of Chemical Engineering
University of Calcutta

1. A piston-cylinder assembly shown in fig.1 initially contains 0.1-m3 air at 0.1 MPa. The
atmospheric pressure of 0.1 MPa acts on the other side of the piston. At this stage the spring just
touches the piston and does not exert any force. Now the gas is heated till the volume is 0.3 m 3,
at this stage the pressure of the gas is 0.6 MPa. When the spring is compressed it exerts a force
proportional to the decrease in its length. Calculate the work done by the gas and the change of
potential energy of the spring.

spring

piston cylinder
Fig. 1

2. Usually weather data is collected by releasing He or H 2 filled balloons carrying the required
measuring instruments into the atmosphere. In one such experiment a balloon, which is initially
flat, is slowly filled with hydrogen from a cylinder forming a sphere of radius 1m. Calculate the
work done by the balloon-cylinder system.

3. Suppose 1 kg of ice at 00C and 101.325 kPa is completely converted into steam at 100 0C and
at the same pressure. Calculate the work done during melting and during vaporization. It is given
that the density of ice at 00C is 916.23 kg/m3 and the sp. volume of steam at 1000C and 101.325
kPa is 1.673-m3/kg. The specific volume of liquid water at 0 0C is 10-3 m3/kg.

4. A heat exchanger is to be designed to raise the temperature of 10 kmol/hr of ammonia from

300K to 400K. The inlet and exit pressure of ammonia in the exchanger are almost identical.
Determine the amount of energy to be transferred to ammonia in the exchanger if the isobaric
molar heat capacity of ammonia is given by:

 J  3 5 2
Cp   29.747  25.108  10 T  1.546  10 T
 mol.K 
5. In a closed piston-cylinder system, methane was observed to obey the following equation of
state: 𝑃(𝑉 − 𝑛𝑏) = 𝑛𝑅𝑇, where b = 0.029 m3.mol-1. The temperature and volume are 5000C and
5 m3 respectively for 100 moles of methane. At this state, isobaric rate of change of temperature
with volume (in 0C.m-3) is___________? (GATE 2018, 2 marks question)