CHG 2314

Heat Transfer Operations

Winter 2012
Assignment 3
Professor: Dr. Boguslaw Kruczek January 26, 2012

DATE DUE: February 2, 2012 at 4:00 p.m. in the Assignment Box

Problem 1

Answer the following questions and draw a diagram whenever necessary:

a) Write the expressions for thermal resistance to conduction in plane wall, cylindrical shell, and
spherical shell.
b) What is a contact resistance and what modes of heat transfer are associated with the contact
resistance?
c) Can a material experiencing heat generation be represented by a thermal resistance and included
in circuit analysis? If so, why? If not, why not?
d) Consider cylindrical and spherical shells made from the same material and having the same inner
and outer radii. The respective inner (Ti) and outer (To) surface temperatures of both shells are the
same. If k of the shells is independent of temperature, please draw on a single diagram the
temperature profiles across the two shells when:
i) Ti > To
ii) Ti < To

e) Consider a composite wall consisting of layers A, B and C shown below and the corresponding
steady state temperature profile.

A B C

i) Is there a heat generation in any of the layers? If yes, in which one(s)?

 ii) On the diagram below, please plot the heat flux as a function of position.

q"

iii) Please arrange thermal conductivities of A, B, C from the smallest to the largest

f) The figure below shows a cross-section of a composite wall of height H that includes 8 mm-thick
wood siding (kws), 40 mm by 130 mm studs (kst) on 0.65 m centers with glass fiber insulation (kfg),
and a 12 mm layer of gypsum wall board (kgy). The repeatable unit of this composite wall is
therefore 0.65 m wide.

Assuming that surfaces normal to the x-direction are isothermal and thus heat conduction in the
composite wall is one-dimensional in x-direction:
i) Draw the thermal circuit representing the repeatable unit of this composite wall.
Remember to clearly label all the resistances in the circuit.
ii) Write the expressions for each resistance in the circuit from part ii). Be sure to use
appropriate numerical values for L and A.

Problem 2
An electrical current of I = 700 A flows through a stainless steel cable (ks = 14.9 W/m K) having a
diameter of D = 4 mm and an electrical resistance of Re' = 6 x 10-4 /m (i.e., per meter of cable length).
The cable is in ambient air and large surroundings for which T = Tsur = 20oC. The cable has an emissivity
of s = 0.3, and the coefficient associated with heat transfer by natural convection may be approximated
by an expression of the form:
T T
14
W
h C s , where C 1.25 7 4 5 4
D m K
 a) What would be the outer surface temperature (Ts) and the maximum temperature (Tmax) of a non-
insulated cable at the above conditions?

In reality, the cables such as the one described above should be insulated. It is proposed to insulate this
cable with a 2 mm-thick insulator of thermal conductivity kins = 0.5 W/m K and emissivity of ins = 0.9.
The contact resistance between the cable and the insulation is 0.01 m2 K/W.

b) What would be the maximum insulation (Tins,max) and the maximum cable (Tmax) temperatures at
the above conditions.

Please note that the flow of electrical through the cable results in uniform heat generation within the cable
given by: E'g W m I 2 Re'