ASE2101 Heat Transfer and Thermodynamics

Tutorial 1 - Questions

1. (a) What does the total energy of a system consist of?

(b) What is the difference between mechanical energy and thermal energy? What are
the different forms of mechanical energy of a fluid stream?
(c) What are the different mechanisms for transferring energy to or from a control
volume?
(d) An adiabatic closed system is raised 100 m at a location where the gravitational
acceleration is 9.81 m/s2. Find the energy change of this system, in kJ/kg.
(Ans : 0.98 kJ/kg)

2. A room is initially at a temperature of 20C. The room contains a 100-W lightbulb, a

110-W TV set, a 200-W refrigerator, and a 1-kW iron. Assuming no heat transfer into
the room from the outside, what is the rate of increase of the energy content of the room
when all these electrical devices are turned on?
(Ans : 1,410 W)

3. A 1-storey classroom in a village is to be air-conditioned using window air-conditioning

units. The cooling load is due to people, lights and heat transfer through the walls,
windows and roof. If the room air is to be maintained at a constant temperature of 21C,
determine the number of 5-kW window air conditioning units required.
Room specifications:
People : 40 children with each dissipating heat at a rate of about 360 kJ/h.
Light bulbs : 10 bulbs with power rating of 100-W each.
Rate of heat transfer through the walls, windows and roof : 15,000 kJ/h
(Ans: 2 units)

Page 1 of 5
4. In a certain country, a typical household pays about $1,200 a year on energy bills. The
Public Utilities Board of that country estimates that 46% of the energy cost per year is
used for the heating (during winter) and cooling (during summer) of the house. The
heating and cooling costs of a poorly insulated house can be reduced by up to 30% by
adding adequate insulation. If the cost of adding insulation is $200 for a typical
household, calculate how long it will take for the insulation to pay for itself from the
energy it saves.
(Ans : 1.2 years)

5. A piston-cylinder device contains 0.85 kg of a refrigerant at -10C. The piston which is

free to move has a mass of 12 kg and a diameter of 25 cm. The atmospheric pressure
is 88 kPa. The refrigerant is then heated to a temperature of 15C. The specific
volumes of the refrigerant at the initial state of 90.4 kPa and -10C and the final state
90.4 kPa and -15C are 0.2302 m3/kg and 0.2544 m3/kg, respectively.

Calculate

a) the final pressure

b) the change in the volume of the cylinder

(Ans: (a) 90.4 kPa, (b) 0.0205 m 3)

6. Industrial accidents involving explosion of steam boilers can happen due to many
factors. The work that a pressurised fluid would do if allowed to expand adiabatically to
the state of the surroundings can be viewed as the explosive energy of the pressurised
fluid. Because of the very short time period of the explosion and the apparent stability
afterward, the explosion process can be considered to be adiabatic with no changes in
KE and PE. The closed-system conservation of energy relation in this case reduces to
𝑊𝑜𝑢𝑡 = 𝑚(𝑢1 − 𝑢2 ). Then the explosive energy becomes 𝐸𝑒𝑥𝑝 = 𝑚(𝑢1 − 𝑢2 ) where
subscripts 1 and 2 refer to the state of the fluid before and after the explosion,
respectively.

(a) Determine the explosive energy of 20 m 3 of steam at 10 MPa and 500C assuming
the steam condenses and becomes a liquid at 25C after the explosion.

Page 2 of 5
 (b) If the explosive energy of TNT is 3,250 kJ/kg, this explosion is equivalent to how
many kg of TNT?
Assume that the steam condenses and becomes a liquid at room temperature after the
explosion.

The properties of the steam at the initial and final states are:
P1 = 10 MPa v1 = 0.032811 m3/kg

T1 = 500C u1 = 3,047.0 kJ/kg

T2 = 25C u2 = 104.83 kJ/kg

Compressed liquid

(Ans (a) 1,793,436 kJ, (b) 551.8 kg)

7. A water pump increases the water pressure from 75 kPa as a saturated liquid to 350
kPa.
(a) Determine the flow work, in kJ/kg, required by the pump. The specific volume of
saturated liquid water at 75 kPa is 0.001037 m3/kg.
(b) If the pump’s efficiency is 80%, what is the work input per unit mass to the pump?
(Ans: (a) 0.285 kJ/kg, (b) 356.5 J/kg)

(Saturated
liquid)

8. Refrigerant-134a enters the condenser of a residential heat pump at 800 kPa and 35C
at a rate of 0.018 kg/s and leaves at 800 kPa as a saturated liquid. If the compressor
consumes 1.2 kW of power, determine

(a) the COP of the heat pump, and

Page 3 of 5
 (b) the rate of heat absorption from the outside air.

The enthalpies of the refrigerant at the condenser inlet and exit are:

P1 = 800 kPa h1 = 271.18 kJ/kg

T1 = 35C u1 = 3,047.0 kJ/kg

P2 = 800 kPa h2 = 95.47 kJ/kg

x2 = 0

(Ans : (a) 2.64, (b) 1.96 kW)

9. For heat transfer modeling purpose, a man is modeled as a 30-cm diameter, 170-cm
long vertical cylinder with both the top and bottom surfaces insulated and with the side
surface at a temperature of 34C. If the rate of heat loss from this man to the environment
at 20C is 336 W, what is the rate of entropy transfer from the body of this man
accompanying the heat transfer, in W/K?
(Ans : 1.094 W/K)

Page 4 of 5
10. (a) Does the ideal vapour-compression refrigeration cycle involve any internal
irreversibilities? Explain your answer.

(b) Why is the throttling valve not replaced by an isentropic turbine in the ideal vapor-
compression refrigeration cycle?
(c) It is proposed to use water instead of refrigerant-134a as the working fluid in air-
condition applications where the minimum temperature never falls below the
freezing point. Would you support this proposal? Why? (Assume that the water
is maintained at 10C in the evaporator.)

Page 5 of 5