CHEN 470: Chemical Process Design

Tutorial Assignment – 2.2

Problem 1: Steam Engine

In the previous tutorial, you learned about simulating the refrigeration cycle. In this tutorial, a
steam engine will be simulated. In it, we will learn how to specify pumps, heaters, coolers, and
expanders.

Figure 1: Steam engine cycle

These engines are still very commonly used these days. A steam engine is used by various types
of power plants (including nuclear power plants) to generate electricity. Some chemical plants use
extra heat generated from reactions in relevant processes to generate steam, which, in turn, is used
to generate electricity.

A steam engine consists of the following steps:

1. Water is pumped into a boiler using a pump.

2. Water is vaporized in a boiler and becomes high temperature and pressure steam.
3. Steam flows through a turbine and does work. The pressure and temperature go down
during this step. The steam is also partially condensed.
4. The steam is further cooled to be condensed completely. Then, it is fed to the pump
mentioned in the first step to be re-used.
CHEN 470: Chemical Process Design Tutorial Assignment – 2.2

Keypoints that you should pay attention to are:

• Specifications of the Pump block should ensure that there is no vapor in the inlet and
outlet streams of the pump.
• A Heater block is used to simulate the boiler and thus its outlet stream should be a super-
heated steam.
• An Expander block is used to model the gas turbine
• A Cooler block is used to simulate the condenser. We need to ensure that the outlet of the
condenser is a sub-cooled liquid because it is fed to the pump.

The example presented in this tutorial is solely intended to illustrate specific concepts and
principles. It may not reflect an industrial application or real situation.

For this tutorial you will only need water as the component and use NBS Steam as the property
package.

1. The water flow rate is 10,000 kg/h,

2. The outlet of the pump should be at 1.2 bar,
3. The steam feeding the turbine is at 460 °C and 40 bar, and leaves it at 1 bar,
4. This stream will leave the condenser with no pressure drop and as a pure liquid,

In nuclear power plants, the steam temperature and pressure can reach as high as 550 °C and 220
bar. With these temperature and pressure, how much power will the steam engine generate?

Problem 2: Vapor-Liquid Equilibrium in HYSYS

In this problem we will check the importance of selecting the proper fluid package on vapor-liquid
equilibrium calculations.

Experimental vapor-liquid equilibrium (VLE) data for an aqueous acetic acid solution at 101.33
kPa are given in Table 1 below.

Check which of the following two fluid packages would you use if you are asked to model this
system?

1. NRTL/Virial,
2. UNIQUAC/ideal gas

2
CHEN 470: Chemical Process Design Tutorial Assignment – 2.2

You can plot the data using Excel.

Table 1: Experimental VLE data for the binary system of water (1) and acetic acid (2) at 101.33
kPa [Chang et al., J. Chem. Eng. Data, vol. 50, pp. 1129-1133, 2005]
𝒙𝟏 𝒚𝟏
0.0738 0.1203
0.1273 0.1924
0.1426 0.2208
0.19 0.2805
0.2448 0.3581
0.298 0.4334
0.3731 0.5196
0.478 0.6192
0.5279 0.6691
0.5871 0.7199
0.6294 0.7558
0.6788 0.7924
0.7366 0.8288
0.808 0.8697
0.8434 0.891
0.8751 0.9181
0.9259 0.953
0.9813 0.9854