Thermodynamics Homework 4 Solutions

1. Turn in problems 1 and 2 on the same page. A piston-cylinder device on the ground (State 1) is carried high up in the atmosphere by a balloon (State 2) and then returned to Earth (State 3). The piston is weightless and the device is frictionless; therefore the pressure inside the device is the same as the pressure outside. The cylinder is filled with air (an ideal gas). The cylinder is adiabatic. Draw States 1, 2, and 3 on a - diagram and draw arrows connecting them. Include all relevant isotherms. The gas cools because it does work on the atmosphere as it expands while rising to higher altitudes. It heats back up again because the atmosphere does work on it while it descends back to the ground.

2. Turn in problems 1 and 2 on the same page. Water and R-134a are contained in two vessels that are connected by a frictionless pistoncylinder device. Both substances are in vapor-liquid equilibrium. The quality of the water is 0.98 and the quality of the R-134a is 0.02. The area of the piston is 0.1 m2. Does a force need to be applied to keep the piston from moving? If so, how much and in what direction?

Piston

Valve

Water

R-134a

Yes, because the vapor pressure of R-134a is much higher than water at 100C.

3. Consider the following piston-cylinder device. The lower brick sits on the piston and the upper brick is suspended by a string. The system initially consists of of liquid water and some mass of vapor at with a quality of . The piston and lower brick lift off the stops once the system temperature reaches . The lower brick touches the upper brick once the volume of the system is 3 times larger than its initial state. The tension in the string becomes zero when the pressure reaches . The process stops once the volume has increased an additional 8.5%. Note that there are 5 important states in this problem. a. Draw the process on a P-V diagram. Label what is going on at each of the 5 important states. b. How much work did the system do? c. What is the final temperature when the process stops?

104

103
2 4 5 3 1

P [kPa]

102

101

100 10-3

10-2

10-1

100

101

v [m3/kg]

4. Carbon dioxide is cooled at constant pressure through a short length of pipe. It enters the pipe at a rate of 4.4 lbm/s, a temperature of 440F, and a pressure of 435 psi. It leaves the pipe at a temperature of 350F. Make a table of the volumetric flow rate (ft3/s) and density (lbm/ft3) entering and leaving the pipe, assuming the gas is ideal. On the same table, include the actual volumetric flow rate and density entering and leaving the pipe. Use EES to make these calculations. Turn in a screenshot of your results showing No unit problems were detected. Check the ideal-gas densities by hand, showing your calculations with units. Finally, make a comparison between the actual and idealized values, and explain why there is a difference, based on molecular interactions. Actual 2.172 ft3/s 1.929 ft3/s 2.026 lbm/ft3 2.281 lbm/ft3 Ideal gas 2.219 ft3/s 1.997 ft3/s 1.983 lbm/ft3 2.203 lbm/ft3

Volume flow entering Volume flow leaving Density entering Density leaving

Densities entering and leaving:

(435*144*32.17) / (0.04513*25037*(440+459.67)) = 1.982 lbm/ft3

(435*144*32.17) / (0.04513*25037*(350+459.67)) = 2.20266 lbm/ft 3

Carbon dioxide generally exhibits attractive intermolecular interactions, which tend to increase the density and decrease the volume from what is expected of an ideal gas. This phenomenon is observed in the table, in which the actual volume flows are smaller than ideal, and the actual densities are slightly higher than ideal.

5. Two tanks are shown below, Tank A and Tank B, which are connected by a valve. Tank A contains R-134a. Tank B is initially evacuated. The valve is opened, and saturated vapor is transferred from Tank A to Tank B until the pressure in Tank B equals the pressure in Tank A. What is the final quality of R-134a in Tank A ( )? The system remains isothermal at .

Vapor

Tank A R-134a

Tank B

Evacuated

Quality went up because some of the liquid vaporized in Tank A and moved to Tank B