Problem Statement

One way of increasing heat transfer from the mud-ball

on a hot summer day is to wet it. This is especially
effective in windy weather, as you may have noticed. A
mud-ball (insert your roll number last 3 digit) -cm-
diameter sphere at 30°C with an emissivity of 0.95,
determine the total rate of heat loss from the mud-ball at
ambient air conditions of 1 atm, 25°C, 40 percent relative
humidity, and 25 (insert your roll number last 3 digit)
winds if the mud-ball is wet. Take the surrounding
temperature to be 25°C.
Assumptions:

1 The low mass flux conditions exist so that the Chilton-

Colburn analogy between heat and mass transfer is applicable
since the mass fraction of vapor in the air is low (about 2
percent for saturated air at 300 K).
2 Both air and water vapor at specified conditions are ideal
gases (the error involved in this assumption is less than 1
percent).
4 The surrounding surfaces are at the same temperature as the
ambient air.

Properties
The air-water vapor mixture is Wet
30C
assumed to be dilute, and thus
Evaporation
we can use dry air properties Air
25C
Mud-ball

for the mixture. The 1 atm

25 km/h
properties of air at the free
stream temperature of 25C
and 1 atm are,
from Table A-15,

k , Pr,  , .
The mass diffusivity of water
vapor in air at the average
temperature of (25 + 30)/2 =
27.5C = 300.5 K is

10 T 2.072
D AB  DH 2O-air  1.8710
P

(Table A-9).

The saturation pressure of water at 25C is Psat@25C  3169

. kPa.

Properties of water at 30C are h  2431 kJ / kg and P  4.246 kPa

fg v

(Table A-1)
The gas constants of dry air and water are Rair = 0.287
kPa.m3/kg.K and Rwater = 0.4615 kPa.m3/kg.K Also, the
emissivity of the mud-ball is given to be 0.95.

Analysis
Radiation
Heat transfer from the mud-ball is by forced convection and
radiation only.

Q rad  As (Ts4  Tsurr

4
)
Convection
The Reynolds number for flow over the mud-ball is
V D
Re 


Nusselt number

1/ 4
 

Nu  2  0.4 Re 1/ 2
 0.06 Re 2/3
 Pr  
0.4

 s 

heat transfer coefficient

k
h Nu
D

Convection heat transfer rate from the mud-ball becomes

Q conv  h As (Ts  T )

Evaporation
When the mud-ball is wet, there is additional heat transfer
mechanism by evaporation. The Schmidt number is

Sc 
DAB

The Sherwood number and the mass transfer coefficients are

determined to be
1/ 4
 

Sh  2  0.4 Re 1/ 2
 0.06 Re 2/3

Sc  
0.4

 s 

ShD AB
hmass  s
L
The air at the water surface is saturated, and thus the vapor
pressure at the surface is simply the saturation pressure of water
at the surface temperature (4.246 kPa at 30C). The vapor
pressure of air far from the water surface is determined from

Pv,  Psat@T  (0.40) Psat@25C

Treating the water vapor and the air as ideal gases, the vapor
densities at the water-air interface and far from the surface are
determined to be
At the surface:
P
v , s  v , s
RvTs

Away from the surface:

Pv , s
v , s 
RvTs
Then the evaporation rate and the rate of heat transfer by
evaporation become
m  hmass As ( v , s  v ,  )
v

and
Q evap  m v h fg

Then the total rate of heat loss from the wet mud-ball to the
surrounding air and surfaces becomes
Q total,wet  Q conv  Q rad  Q
evap
Related Study Materials:
1.Yunus C. Heat and Mass Transfer: Fundamentals and Applications 5th by Cengel, Yunus,
Ghajar, Afshin (2014) Hardcover. McGraw-Hill Education.
2. "PROPERTY TABLES AND CHARTS (SI UNITS)." Accessed June 12, 2020.
http://cecs.wright.edu/people/faculty/sthomas/htappendix01.pdf