Ryerson University

Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering

Midterm Exam
MEC701 Heat Transfer
Date: Tuesday, February 10, 2015 Time: 8:10-10:00am (1 hour, 50 minutes)
Rooms: ENG101, ENG102, ENG103
Examiner: Dr. D. Naylor
INSTRUCTIONS
1. This is an OPEN BOOK TEST. Materials allowed are limited to: the course textbook,
class lecture notes/handouts, solution sets and old exam solutions posted on the website,
any hand written notes/solutions, and the MEC701 Lab Manual.
2. Laptop/tablet computers are NOT allowed.
3. Calculators must be non-communicating.
4. Cell phones, PDAs, MP3 players, pagers, etc. are NOT allowed.
5. Students are responsible for keeping track of the time. It is strongly recommended to
bring a regular watch to the exam.
6. Answer all questions. The mark values are shown below.
7. A valid student identification card must be presented when attendance is taken.
8. You may need to refer to tables in the appendices of the course textbook in order to solve
some problems.
9. In order to get maximum part marks, be sure to give the proper units on all intermediate
results. Missing units on final answers will be penalized.

Student Name (PRINT PLEASE!):

Student Number:
Section:

Question
A1-A5

Mark
/10

B1

/10

B2

/10

B3

/10

Total

/40

PART A - MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS

Each of the questions below is followed by several suggested answers. On the exam paper, circle the ONE
that is best. There is no penalty for incorrect answers. Questions A1 to A5 are worth 2 marks each.
A1. Consider a problem for which the heat conduction equation in its simplest form is:

0
This equation describes:
(a) Steady two-dimensional heat conduction with constant thermal conductivity.
(b) Unsteady two-dimensional heat conduction with constant thermal conductivity.
(c) Steady two-dimensional heat conduction with variable thermal conductivity.
(d) Unsteady two-dimensional heat conduction with variable thermal diffusivity.
(e) Steady one-dimensional heat conduction with variable thermal diffusivity.
A2. A current of 3.1 amps passes through the wire of an electric heater that has a resistance of 35 ohms. If
the wire has a diameter of 1.5 mm and a length of 5.0 m, what is the rate of internal heat generation per unit
?
volume,
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

1.43x104 W/m3
2.17x105 W/m3
2.49x106 W/m3
3.81x107 W/m3
1.90x108 W/m3

A3. An uncovered cooking pot on a stove top contains 0.5 kg of liquid water at 100oC. If the electric heating
element transfers heat to the water at a rate of 2 kW, how long will it take to evaporate all the water in the
pot? (Hint: The properties of saturated water are given in the appendices of the textbook, Table A-9).
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

163 s
476 s
564 s
784 s
1319 s

A4. Consider two parallel pipes that are deeply buried in soil that has a conductivity of k=1.2 W/mK. The
distance between the centre lines of the pipes is 20cm. One pipe has an outside diameter of 10 cm and an
outer surface temperature of 100 oC. The other pipe has an outside diameter of 5.0 cm and an outer surface
temperature of 30 oC. The heat transfer rate between the two parallel pipes is:
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

25 W/m
49 W/m
75 W/m
134 W/m
156 W/m

A5. Imagine that you have purchased a package of batt wall insulation from the hardware store. The package
indicates that the insulation has a rating of R-30. If the insulation has a thermal conductivity of
k=0.050W/mK, how thick are the batts?
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

10.5 cm
26.4 cm
32.7 cm
45.2 cm
150 cm

B1. Consider steady one-dimensional heat transfer through an oven window with a thickness of t=11 mm.
The window has thermal conductivity k=0.80 W/mK and surface emissivity of =0.9. The outside surface of
the window has a temperature of To=48 oC. The window exchanges heat by convection with the room air at
25oC and by radiation to the large surrounding walls at TSURR=20oC. The convective heat transfer coefficient
is h=18.0W/m2K. Calculate the inside surface temperature of the glass window, Ti. (10 marks)

B2. Consider steady one-dimensional heat transfer from a cylindrical hot water storage tank. The tank is
thin-walled with a diameter of D=30 cm and a height of H=90 cm. The water inside the tank has a
temperature of 60oC and the internal heat transfer coefficient is hi=50 W/m2K. To reduce the rate of heat
loss, an insulation blanket is wrapped around only the curved vertical portion of the tank. The blanket has a
thickness of t=5.0cm and thermal conductivity of k=0.030 W/mK. The external heat transfer coefficient is
h=7.0 W/m2K and the ambient temperature is To=22 oC. Assume that the heat transfer coefficients are
constant i.e., the same with or without the insulation blanket.
(a) Calculate the heat transfer rate from the curved vertical portion of the tank (only), with and without
the insulation blanket. Be sure to sketch and fully label the thermal resistance network(s) used in your
analysis. (8 marks)
(b) If the water is heated electrically at a cost of 15 cents per kilowatt hour, how much money does the
insulation blanket save in energy costs in one year? (2 marks)

B3. Steady two-dimensional conduction heat transfer is to be solved numerically in a long solid body. The
30cm x 30cm cross section is shown below with temperatures at selected nodes. The thermal conductivity of
the solid is k=2.5 W/mK. Surface A-B is adiabatic. Surface A-D has a fixed temperature of 125oC. Surface
B-C and surface C-D have convective boundary conditions, as shown in the diagram. Using the finite
difference method:
(a) Calculate the three unknown nodal temperatures shown below, T1, T2 and T3. (7 marks)
(b) Calculate the total convective heat transfer rate from the top surface (B-C) per unit depth into the
page. (3 marks)