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Vm235: Thermodynamics
Homework 6
Assigned Fri Jun 24, 2016; Due Thur July 7 at the start of class

Homework
These problems should be completed according to the
solution format posted on the course website.
1) Review
Rolls-Royces
online
resource,
titled Journey through a jet engine, at
http://html.investis.com/R/Rolls-Royce/corp/
interactive-games/journey03/.
2) The front of a jet engine acts as a diffuser,
receiving air at 900 km/h, 3 C, and 50 kPa,
bringing it to 80 m/s relative to the engine before
entering the compressor (see Fig. 1). If the flow
area is increased to 120% of the inlet area, find the
temperature and pressure in the compressor inlet.
(Adapted from P6.28 [1].)
The partial solution is provided below without
annotations and other essential elements of a complete Vm235 homework solution. Please reproduce
(i.e., copy) the partial solution and complete it by
incorporating in it your answers to (i)(vi).

Diffuser

Nozzle

Fig. 1. Jet engine. [Source: J. Dahl, Wikimedia Commons.]

3) At the back end of another jet engine, a flow of air

enters the nozzle at 1000 K, 200 kPa and 30 m/s,
as shown in Fig. 1, and exits the nozzle at 850 K,
90 kPa. What is the exit velocity, assuming no heat
loss? (P6.23 [1])
4) The turbocharger of an internal combustion engine
consists of a turbine and a compressor (Fig. 2). Hot
exhaust gases flow through the turbine to produce
work and the work output from the turbine is used
as the work input to the compressor. The pressure
of ambient air is increased as it flows through the
compressor before it enters the engine cylinders.

Thus, the purpose of a turbocharger is to increase

the pressure of air so that more air gets into the
cylinder. Consequently, more fuel can be burned
and more power can be produced by the engine.

350C

50C
100 kPa
Air

Turbine

Compressor
130 kPa

400C
120 kPa
Exhaust
gases

30C
Cold air

Aftercooler

40C

Fig. 2. Turbocharger: Textbook, P5183 in the 7th ed.

In a turbocharger, exhaust gases enter the turbine

at 400 C, 120 kPa at a rate of 0.02 kg/s and
leave at 350 C. Air enters the compressor at
50 C, 100 kPa and leaves at 130 kPa at a rate
of 0.018 kg/s. The compressor increases the air
pressure with a side effect: It also increases the air
temperature, which increases the possibility of a
gasoline engine to suffer engine knock. To avoid
this, an aftercooler is placed after the compressor
to cool the warm air by cold ambient air before
it enters the engine cylinders. It is estimated that
the aftercooler must decrease the air temperature
below 80 C if knock is to be avoided. The cold
ambient air enters the aftercooler at 30 C and
leaves at 40 C. Disregarding any frictional losses
in the turbine and the compressor and treating the
exhaust gases as air, determine (a) the temperature
of the air at the compressor outlet, (b) the minimum volume flow rate of ambient air required to
avoid knock. (Textbook, P5183, 7th ed.)

5) A proposal is made to use a geothermal supply of

hot water to operate a steam turbine, as shown
in Fig. 3. The high-pressure water at 1.5 MPa,
180 C is throttled into a flash evaporator chamber,
which forms liquid and vapor at a lower pressure
of 400 kPa. The liquid is discarded, while the
saturated vapor feeds the turbine and exits at
10 kPa with a 90 % quality. If the turbine should
produce 1 MW, find the required mass flow rate
of hot geothermal water in kilograms per hour.
(P6.101 [1])
1. Hot water

2. Saturated
vapor out
.
W
Flash
evaporator

Turbine

3. Exhaust
Saturated
liquid out

Fig. 3. Problem P6.101 in [1].

6) Water tank discharge. A 200-L tank initially

contains water at 100 kPa and quality of 1%.
Heat is transferred to the water, thereby raising
its pressure and temperature. At a pressure of
2 MPa, a safety valve opens and saturated vapor
at 2 MPa flows out. The process continues, maintaining 2 MPa inside until the quality in the tank
is 90%, then stops. Determine the total mass of
water that flowed out and the total heat transfer.
Answer: 8.9 kg, 25.5 MJ. (P6.110 [1])
7) Compressed air energy storage. Please refer to
[2] and [3] for background information, although
you would not needed the information to solve this
homework problem. Consider a sealed, adiabatic
cave containing 10, 000 m3 of air at 500 kPa and
400 K. This air is used to drive a turbine with
fixed turbine exit condition of 100 kPa and 300 K.
Find the amount of work delivered by the time
the cave pressure has decreased to 300 kPa. You
may assume that the turbine operates adiabatically.
Answer: 990 MJ (Adapted from [4])
Note: h = cp T ; h = cp T , i.e., the change
in enthalpy for an ideal gas may be approximated
by its average constant-pressure specific heat multiplied by its change in temperature, but it does

not imply that the ideal gas enthalpy is equal to

the product of its specific heat and temperature.
Recitation
These problems may be discussed during the recitation
session. Do not turn them in.
1) Nitrogen tank charging. A steel cylinder initially
contains nitrogen gas at 200 kPa and 25 C. The
cylinder is connected to a supply line containing
nitrogen at 800 kPa and 25 C. A valve is opened,
allowing nitrogen to flow into the cylinder until
the pressure reaches 800 kPa. The cylinder internal volume is 0.1 m3 , its mass (cylinder only) is
50 kg, and its specific heat is 0.43 kJ/kg-K. Find
the final mass of nitrogen in the tank and the
final temperature of the nitrogen assuming constant
specific heats at room temperature for nitrogen,
and assuming (a) no heat transfer from the nitrogen
to the tank, and (b) rapid heat transfer between
the nitrogen and tank such that the cylinder and
nitrogen remain in thermal equilibrium during the
process (with negligible heat transfer from the
cylinder to its external surroundings). Answer: (a)
380 K, 0.733 kg (b) 301 K, 0.927 kg (Textbook,
P5172 in the 7th ed.)
R EFERENCES
[1] C. Borgnakke and R. E. Sonntag, Fundamentals of Thermodynamics, SI Version, 7th ed. Wiley, 2009.
[2] R. B. Schainker, Advanced compressed air energy storage
(CAES) demonstration projects, in 2011 EPRI Renewable Energy Council Meeting.
[3] S. Succar and R. H. Williams, Compressed air energy storage:
Theory, resources, and applications for wind power. Princeton
Univ., NJ, Apr. 2008.
[4] Y. A. C
engel and M. A. Boles, Thermodynamics: An Engineering
Approach, 4th ed. McGraw-Hill, 2004.

Partial solution to textbook problem P6.28 [1]

Reproduce (i.e., copy) the partial solution below and
complete it by incorporating in it your answers to
(i)(vi).
Find temperature and pressure at the diffuser exit
(compressor inlet) of a jet engine.
(i. Sketch setup, sys. boundary, and show transfers)
The mass and energy balances for the open system may
be written as
dmsys
1
[m] :
=m
in m
out = 0
dt
dEsys 2
[E] :
=m
in (h + 21 V 2 )in m
out (h + 12 V 2 )out
dt
1
=0
(ii. State the assumption behind the equality marked 1)
(iii. State the assumption behind the equality marked 2)
The energy balance can be further reduced to
3

2
2
hout hin = cp,avg (Tout Tin ) = 12 (Vin
Vout
)

(iv. State the two assumptions behind equality marked 3)

We take as the initial guess Tavg = 300 K, so
cp,avg = cp (Tavg ) = 1.005 kJ/kg K (Table A-2(b))
2
2
Tout = Tin + 21 (Vin
Vout
)/cp,avg

= (3 + 273) K
"
#
2 
1
900 103 m
m 2
kJ
+
80
/1.005
2
60 60 s
s
kg K
= 297.9 K

(v. Use this first estimate of Tout to (a) revise the average
temperature guess Tavg and the corresponding cp,avg
using Table A-2(c), and (b) show that the diffuser exit
temperature converges to 298 K.)
Tout = 298 K

(vi. Calculate the diffuser exit/compressor inlet pressure)

Pout = 144 kPa