Department of Electrical Engineering

EE 4218 - Industrial Electronics

Assignment 1 (Electronic Submission Only)
Note:

This assignment is due at the beginning of your lecture in week 6, Monday 5, May 2014
12:00 PM. The assignment must be submitted individually and must be your own work. The
assignments over the lecture program are worth 25% of your final assessment. Late submission
without good reason will see you lose half your assignment mark, rising to the entire
amount if its more than 2 days overdue. Late submissions must be made directly to the
lecturer.
Assignment must be submitted via turnitin before Monday 5, May 2014 12:00 PM.

Create your students account on https://turnitin.com/newuser_type.asp?lang=en_us

Select Student (account types)
Class ID and enrollment passwords are as follows.

The University of New South Wales

School of Photovoltaic & Renewable Energy Engineering
Tutorial Week 5

SOLA5057 & GSOE9017

1. In a heat exchanger the amount of heat transferred to the cool fluid from the hot fluid, Qch
can be written as, :

Qch = mc C pc (Tc,out Tc,in )

where mc is the amount of cool fluid passing through the heat exchanger during this time [kg],
and Cpc is the heat capacity of the cool fluid [kJ/(kg.oC)], and TC,in and TC,out are the inlet and
outlet temperatures for the cool fluid [oC].
a) What is the equivalent expression for the heat transferred from the hot fluid (ie Qhc)?
b) What is the relationship between Qhc and Qch?
c) Under steady state conditions, derive an expression for the rate of heat transfer from the hot
fluid to the cool fluid.
2. In a blanching process at a food factory it is necessary to replace contaminated hot water
with clean fresh water supplied at the rate of 7 litres/min. A waste heat survey revealed that
the process operated for 37 hours/week, 47 weeks per year and that heat was provided by fuel
oil costing $292 per tonne. The fuel oil has a calorific value of 44.5 MJ/kg. The boiler (which
heats the water) has an efficiency of 74%. The water temperature at the inlet to the boiler is
13oC and at its outlet is 93oC. The hot water is delivered from the boiler to the process via
insulated pipes. The temperature of the water reaching the process is 92oC and after passing
through the process the temperature of the water is 81oC. This water typically drains to waste,
as it is contaminated after passing through the process.
A plate and frame heat exchanger with an installed cost of $6100 and additional annual running
costs of $800 (additional pump energy to power the heat exchanger, maintenance etc) and an
effectiveness1 of 77% is being considered for reducing energy costs.
a) Draw a neat sketch of the process including the heat exchanger.
b) What is the cost of supplying the energy required for heating the water in the boiler (in
$/kWh)? (That is, what is the cost of 1 kWh of heat energy supplied to the water?)
c) What would be the maximum rate that waste heat could be recovered (in kW) (assume all
the heat that remains in the hot water after the process could be transferred to the incoming
cold water). The process occurs at a constant pressure (1 atm), and for water
Cp = 4.18 kJ/(kgC).
d) What will be the actual heat recovery rate?
1

The effectiveness of a heat exchanger is defined by the following equations:

.

Q exch = Q max
.

where

Q exch is the rate at which heat is transferred in the heat exchanger and Q max = m C p (Th ,in Tc , in ) .

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e) What will be the cool water temperature when it leaves the heat exchanger?
f) What will be the temperature of the hot waste water when it leaves the heat exchanger?
g) How much heat will be recovered annually? (in kWh)
h) What is the annual value of the recovered waste heat? ($)
i) What would be the simple payback period for such a system?
j) Plot the IRR as a function of years from 1 to 25 years (a heat exchanger should have an
operational lifetime of ~25 years and remain efficient if well maintained, eg the build up of
scale is prevented. Why?)
3) Combustion control:
When a fuel such as natural gas is burned stoichiometrically we can write the combustion
equation as:
CH4 + 2O2 + 7.52N2 CO2 + 2H2O + 7.52N2
The factor of 7.52 arises as the air is assumed to consist of 21% oxygen (by volume) and
78.1% nitrogen and 0.9% argon. The argon is assumed to act like nitrogen during combustion
processes (ie it does not react and passes through the combustion chamber: always true for Ar
and true for N2 at low enough temperatures to avoid forming nitrous oxides).
a) Write down the chemical equation for the combustion of CH4, if excess air is used
( (%)). That is if x moles of air are required for stoichiometric combustion, we add
x(1+ ) moles of air to the chamber. (This is often done at about 15% excess air to
ensure complete combustion due to imperfect mixing of the fuel and air in the
chamber).
b) Show that the excess oxygen (% O2) (the volume percentage of oxygen in the exhaust
gases) can be expressed by:
% O2 =

5.26 + 4.76

c) If excess oxygen of 5.32% is measured in the flue how much excess air is being fed
into the furnace?
d) This amount of excess air enhances energy losses up the flue. It should be reduced to
15% excess air. What amount of excess oxygen would this correspond to?
e) A company that utilises natural gas in its furnace is considering installing an oxygen
monitor in the flue stack to allow the amount of air being fed into the furnace to be
more tightly controlled. The cost of the oxygen monitor, fully installed is $80,000 plus
GST! The burner has a capacity of 63 GJ/hour, the furnace operates for 6,200 hours per
year, and the company pays $5/GJ2. The fuel savings expected from reducing the
2

http://www.deus.nsw.gov.au/publications/esp/enswc/Energy%20at%20a%20glance%202000%2074%20KB.pdf

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excess air to 15% are estimated to be 4.5%. What are the annual fuel savings and the
simple payback time?
4) Furnace Insulation (Cengel Heat Transfer p 403)
During a plant visit you notice that the outer surface of a cylindrical curing oven is very hot,
and your measurements indicate that the average surface temperature of the exposed surface of
the oven is 80C, while the surrounding air temperature is 25C. You suggest to the plant
manager that the oven should be insulated, but the manager does not think it is worth the
expense. Then you propose to the manager to pay for the insulation yourself if he lets you
keep the savings from the fuel bill for one year. That is (for example) if the fuel bill is
$5000/yr before insulation and drops to $2000/yr after insulation, you will get paid $3000. The
manager agrees, as he has nothing to lose and possibly something to gain! Is this a smart bet
on your part?
The oven is 3.65 m long, and 2.45 m in diameter. The plant operates 16 hours per day and 365
days per year. The insulation to be used is fibreglass (kins = 0.038 W/(mC)), which costs
$1.70 per m2 per 25 mm thickness and costs $21.50 per m2 to install regardless of the
thickness.
The combined radiation and convection heat transfer co-efficient on the outer surface
(insulated or uninsulated) is estimated to be hO = 20 W/(m2C). The oven uses natural gas,
which costs $7.10 per GJ and the efficiency of the oven is 80%.
a) For the first year disregard any discounting, or inflation. Using Excel, for example, plot the
annual fuel costs, insulation costs and total cost after one year as a function of insulation
thickness. What is the optimum thickness to minimise the total cost after the first year? (The
insulation is only sold in multiples of 25 mm)
b) How much will you be paid at the end of the year?
c) As a function of insulation thickness, plot the annual cost of fuel as a fraction of the annual
fuel cost for the 25 mm case.
d) On the same graph plot the NPV (at 10% discount rate, after 20 years) as a function of
insulation thickness. Discuss the shape of the NPV graph. What value of the insulation
thickness maximises NPV and what is the annual fuel cost as a fraction of the 25 mm case?
5) Cogeneration
a)
b)
c)
d)

What is cogeneration? Draw a picture.

Explain how it works.
What are the advantages of cogeneration?
What is CHP?

Austin State Hospital (operated by the Texas Mental Health and Mental Retardation state
agency) installed a 1 MW gas turbine, at a cost of $1.8 million in 1992. The waste heat is used

NSW Energy at a glance. Residential customers pay about $14/GJ!!

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to produce steam, which is utilised in the laundry and cafeteria, as well as in the winter to
supplement the heat loads.
The system has been monitored for many years since its installation in 1992. The system
saves $181,000 per year.
e) Calculate the simple payback time.
f) The discounted payback time at an interest rate of 8%.
6) Combined Cycle Generation
a) What is Combined Cycle Generation? Draw a picture.
b) Explain how it works.
c) What are the advantages of CCG?
7) Absorption cooling
a)
b)
c)
d)

What is absorption cooling.

Explain how it works.
How can it save energy?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of absorption cooling?

Answers:

dQ dmc
=
C pc (Tc, out Tc, in )
dt
dt
2 a)to be drawn in class b)$0.032/kWh c) 33.2 kW d) 25.5 kW e) 65.4C f) 28.6C
g) 44,404 kWh h) $1417.48 i) 9.9 years j) IRR reaches 8.9% at 25 years.

1a) Qhc = mhC ph (Th,in Th,out ) b) Qch = Qhc c)

3a) CH4 + 2(1+)O2 + 7.52(1+)N2 CO2 + 2H2O + 7.52(1+)N2 + 2O2

b) in class c) 37.5% d) 2.51 % e) Annual fuel savings: $87,885, simple payback : 1 year
4 a) 75 mm b) $7506.65 c) d) 225 mm, 12.6%
5) a d) see lecture notes e) 9.9 years f) 20.6 years
6) see lecture notes
7) see lecture notes

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