MAE 651 Adv. Thermo.

: S2017 HW2
Due in Class on Monday Feb. 13, 2017
1. Consider the unsteady open system illustrated in figure 1. The initial volume of the vessel isV0 , of
which Va ,i is the volume of the gas and the initial pressure is pi . When the valve is opened at the
time t 0 , the vessel is emptied without mixing at the water-air interface. Treat the air as an ideal gas
with constant specific heats and the water as an incompressible liquid with density w . The mass
( t ) Cp( t ) p0
flow rate through the valve is given by the expression m
0.5
, where C is a
constant and p0 is the atmospheric pressure. Determine the time t f at which point the water
column is completely ejected. Treat the interface as adiabatic and the expansion of the gas as ideal
adiabatic. Further assume that p( t ) p0 .

Figure 1: Unsteady open system of ideal gas and water

2. Consider two Carnot heat engines working between 25oC and 300oC. Evaluate the thermal
efficiency for each of the working media: (a) air as an ideal gas and b) steam, such that the working
medium contacts the high-temperature reservoir as saturated water and leaves as saturated vapor.
Illustrate cycle (a) on p-v and T-s diagrams and cycle (b) on a T-s diagram, including the vapor
dome. Are these efficiencies the same?

3. A reservoir maintained at a high temperature TH supplies heat to a combined cycle heat engine as
shown in figure 2. An ideal Diesel cycle with a compression ratio of 18 and a cut-off ratio of 3
receives heat from the high-temperature reservoir and rejects the heat to bottom cycle, the Lenoir
cycle. Heat addition to the Lenoir cycle is followed by ideal adiabatic expansion to the initial
pressure of the Diesel cycle and subsequent isobaric heat rejection to the low-temperature reservoir
maintained at TL and corresponding to T1 . Air is the working medium in the cycles and can be
treated as an ideal gas with constant specific heats (cv = 2.5Rg, cp = 3.5Rg). Each cycle encloses 5 g
of air and state 1 is at room temperature and pressure.
a. Determine the work output of the Diesel, Lenoir, and the combined cycles
b. Determine the efficiency of the combined cycle using the total work and heat input.
c. Using rL as the compression ratio of the Lenoir cycle, derive an expression for the cycle
efficiency.
d. What is the total entropy change of the reservoirs and the combined cycle?

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 MAE 651 Adv. Thermo.: S2017 HW2

Figure 2: p-v diagram of combined Diesel and Lenoir cycle with maximum and minimum temperatures of T3 and T1

4. Consider a reversible heat engine whose high temperature reservoir of mass m1 and specific heat c1
is initially at a temperature T1. The low temperature reservoir of mass m2 and specific heat capacity
c2 is initially at a temperature T2. During operation, the temperature of the hotter reservoir decreases
while that of the colder one increases until both reservoirs attain the equilibrium temperature Tf.
a. Derive an expression for this final temperature Tf by invoking the fact that the heat engine
operation is reversible.
b. Derive an expression for the total work output by the heat engine
c. Evaluate the final temperature and work for the case where the hotter reservoir contains
100 kg of air at 425 K and the colder reservoir contains 10 kg of water initially at 263 K.
Assume that the reservoirs are constant volume systems.
d. Suppose m1=m2=m and c1=c2=c, what do the above expressions simplify to?

Now, if the heat engine fails to transform part of the heat to work then we have a simple case of
heat transfer from one reservoir to the other until thermal equilibrium is established. Obtain an
expression for the final temperature and the total entropy change in this case.

5. A temperature difference is needed for efficient heat transfer between a heat engine and its
reservoir. Finite rate heat transfer processes have been considered in the literature in an attempt to
determine Carnot engine efficiency at maximum power delivery. Read the paper by Curzon and
Ahlborn (American Journal of Physics, vol. 43, pp. 2224 (1975)). Now address the following:
a. A heat engine is operated using a wood furnace whose maximum temperature is 2200 K
in an environment at 300 K, what would the Carnot efficiency at maximum power be?
b. Consider a Brayton cycle with a pressure ratio of 20 and a Carnot cycle whose hot reservoir
temperature corresponds to the highest temperature in the Brayton cycle. If the lowest
temperature in both cycles is 300 K, what should the highest temperature be so that both
cycles have the same efficiencies?

6. Follow this link and listen to a discussion on the intellectual history of heat from the 17th century:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00fq3d4. In one sentence, identify the contributions of each of
these researchers: Joseph Black, James Prescott Joule, Count Rumford, Sadi Carnot, William Thomson,
and Rudolf Clausius.