The lecture contains

Steady State Flow Processes Application of Steady State Flow Processes

Steady-state Flow Processes

Many of the engineering devices like turbines, compressors, pumps, nozzles, condensers, heat exchangers etc. operate at steady state conditions. The general expression developed for the control volume in the earlier lecture can be simplified if steady flow conditions are assumed. These are:

The mass flows into the control volume at a constant rate and leaves the control volume at the same rate. Therefore, there is no accumulation of mass inside the control volume. Thus, .

or, (13.1 )

The state of the matter at the inlet, exit and at any given point inside the control volume does not change with respect to time. Therefore, (13.2 )

The rate of energy transfer as heat and work across the control surface is a constant. constant; constant

With these, the first law for the control volume reduces to the form

(13.3 )

Application of Steady-state Flow Processes (a) Turbine: Turbine converts enthalpy into useful work. Steam or gas at high temperature and pressure is allowed to expand through a system of rotors.

Figure 13.1 The change in kinetic and potential energy of steam or gas as it passes through the turbine can be ignored without introducing much error. Further, if the heat losses from the turbine are negligible, the first law for this steady state flow reduces to (13.4 )

Therefore, in an adiabatic turbine, the work done per unit mass of the fluid is equal to the decrease in the enthalpy of the fluid. Here, is positive;

(b) Compressor:

A compressor can be considered as a turbine operating in reverse. Fluid enters the compressor at a low pressure and emanates at a higher pressure. If the changes in the kinetic energy and potential energy are ignored, and the energy losses are negligible, then the first law for this flow process reduces to (13.5 ) In a compressor, is negative. Because the work is being done on the system,

. The work done on the compressor per unit mass of the fluid is equal to the increase in enthalpy of the fluid. The compressors discharge the fluid with higher enthalpy, i.e, with higher pressure and temperature.

(c) Nozzle: A nozzle is primarily used to increase the flow velocity.

Figure 13.2 The first law reduces to (13.6 ) or, (13.7 )

If the inlet velocity is negligible

and then

otherwise,

.The velocity is increased at the cost of drop in enthalpy. If an ideal gas is flowing through the nozzle, the exit velocity can be expressed in terms of inlet and outlet pressure and temperatures by making use of the relations: and Therefore, (13.8 ) .

From the relations governing adiabatic expansion, (13.9 )

We get,

(13.10 )

(d) Diffuser: A diffuser can be thought of as a nozzle in which the direction of flow is reversed.

Figure 13.3 For an adiabatic diffuser, and are zero and the first law reduces to

(13.11 )

The diffuser discharges fluid with higher enthalpy. The velocity of the fluid is reduced.

(e) Heat Exchangers

Figure 13.4

The figure 13.4 explains the working of a simple heat exchanger. The governing equation may be modified for multiple entry and multiple exit of the system as (13.12 ) (13.13 ) (13.14 ) (13.15 )

Further,

and (13.16 )

is the mass flow rate of cold fluid and

is the mass flow rate of hot fluid.