CBE 141- Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics

Spring 2015
Homework Set # 6
Deadline: Friday 20 Mar. 2015 (In class by 1:10 pm)
Strict adherence to these rules:
1) Solve each question on a new page.
2) Put your final answer in a box.
3) DO NOT staple your problems into one document; instead, make sure your name is on each
page.
4) No homework regrades.
5) Show all work and cite all sources/references (even if from the textbook, name the table).
Problem 1
You have a boiler that you want to use to vaporize ethanol. The feed to this boiler is liquid ethanol
flowing at 100 mol/min at 410 K and 689 kPa (yes, the ethanol is still liquid at this pressure). Your
boiler heats this ethanol up to 509 K and 5515 kPa. Calculate the heat input that is required for this
boiler. You may model ethanol using the Van Der Waals equation of state.
a= 1215.9 J m3/mol2
b= 8.4 X 10-5 m3/mol
Compare your answers with what you would get if you used enthalpy data from NIST or any other
reputable source.

Problem 2
A steam power plant has two adiabatic turbines connected in series used for expansion. Steam enters
the first turbine under the conditions 650o C and 7000kPa. The outlet from the second turbine is a
mixture of vapor and liquid at 20kPa. The power outputs for each of the turbines are equivalent and
each turbine operates at 78% efficiency.
a) What is the temperature and pressure of the stream between the two turbines? (Hint: you will
need to make a guess and validate this using steam tables and guess again until you converge,
for convenience start guessing with Pintermediate=700kPa as your lower bound with ~25kPa
increments)
b) What is the overall efficiency of the two turbines put together compared to isentropic
expansion from the initial to final state?

Problem 3
Consider the Rankine cycle with steam as the working fluid and T =800K, T =373K. Assume that
H
C
the turbine and pump operate reversibly.
a) Calculate the process conditions of all the streams, amounts of work and heat for all the unit
operations, and efficiency of the entire process. Compile your answers in a single box or table
so that the answers are easy to find.
b) As an engineer, you are not satisfied with this efficiency and you would like to increase it. One way
to raise the efficiency of such a power cycle is to raise the pressure of the boiler, say to P1 = P2
= 100 bar. Assuming that the temperature to which the condenser cools the incoming stream is
still 373 K and that no liquid can be present in the turbine or vapor in the pump, what are the
new pressures, temperatures, work produced and efficiency of the cycle? Are there any potential
disadvantages in this new and improved design over the original?
c) Suppose that your power cycle now operates such that the turbine and the pump are no longer
reversible, but have more realistic efficiencies of 70%. What are the new process conditions and
overall cycle efficiency? [ungraded, recommended for practice]
Problem 4
a) Derive an expression for the efficiency of the Rankine cycle in terms of boiler and condenser
temperatures, generated entropy and heat supplied to the boiler.
b) A model for the internal combustion engine is called air-standard Otto cycle shown below. This cycle
consists of two adiabatic and two constant volume steps with air (which can be assumed an ideal
gas) as the working fluid. A reversible adiabatic compression step (1-2) is followed by absorption
of heat at constant volume (2-3) (this is to achieve combustion). Then air is expanded in a
reversible and adiabatic manner (3-4), finally leading to a constant volume cooling step (4-1) that
returns the system to the initial state. Derive the efficiency for this cycle in terms of the
compression ratio r=Va//Vb