THE MECHANICAL

ENERGY BALANCE
• In some process, heat transfer (Q) and enthalpy changes are
important energy component in the energy balance. While shaft
work, PE and KE terms are usually taken as negligible energies,
thus usually taken as zero value.
 Ex. Distillation, reactors, heat exchangers

• There are some process where shaft work and mechanical forms
of energy ( KE, PE) are important factors in the energy balance.
 Ex. Compression of gases, pumping of liquids, flow of fluids in
rough pipes
 For these processing an energy balance including the mechanical
forms of energy is called Mechanical Energy Balance.
Mechanical energy balance is a type of energy balance that can
tell us a great deal about simple flow systems

Mechanical Energy balance is useful when :

• Only one input and one output system

• Steady flow
• Almost constant temperature
• No reaction
• No heat transfer
• No phase change
• Fluid is incompressible

Shaft Work ( - Ws) is the work done by the process fluid on

a moving part within the system (ex. pump motor ). Usually
with negative sign
 Mechanical Energy Balance for Open System,
Steady State

Ev = loss of mechanical energy (Q – ΔU) which are loss during the flow of the
fluid, i.e. friction, zero for reversible process
In a processing plant, milk flows from a storage tank maintained at
5ºC through a valve to pasteurizer via an insulated 10 cm diameter
pipe at the rate of 1000 L/min. The upstream pressure is 290 KPa
and downstream pressure is 140 KPa. Determine the lost work (Ev)
in J/min and the temperature change which occurs in the milk as a
result of this throttling process (Milk and water are sufficiently
equivalent in properties for you to use those of water.)
If a turbine, driven by water flowing from a reservoir 80 m higher
than the turbine delivers 200 kW, what is the flow rate of the water
in kg/s? Assume that the friction losses in the system yield an overall
efficiency (actual work/ideal reversible work) of 75%. The reservoir
is open to the atmosphere, and the exit velocity of the water is 5 m/s
at a pressure of 150 kPa from the turbine