ENGR 2333 – Thermodynamics

Chapter 6: The Second Law of Thermodynamics

Homework #6 - Due 10/20/10 @ beginning of class

1. A heat engine that propels a ship produces 500 Btu/lbm of work while rejecting 300
Btu/lbm of heat. What is the thermal efficiency? [62.5%]

2. A 600-MW steam power plant, which is cooled by a nearby river, has a thermal
efficiency of 40%. Determine the rate of heat transfer to the river water. Will the
actual heat transfer rate be higher or lower than this value? Why? [900 MW]

3. Water enters an ice machine at 55°F and leaves as ice at 25°F. If the COP of the ice
machine is 2.4 during this operation, determine the required power input for an ice
production rate of 28 lbm/h. (169 Btu of energy needs to be removed from each lbm of
water at 55°F to turn it into ice at 25F.) [0.775 hp]

4. A household refrigerator that has a power input of 450 W and a COP of 2.5 is to cool
five large watermelons, 10 kg each, to 8°C. If the watermelons are initially at 20°C,
determine how long it will take for the refrigerator to cool them. The watermelons
can be treated as water whose specific heat is 4.2 kJ/kg·°C. Is your answer realistic or
optimistic? Explain. [2240 s]

5. A heat pump with a COP of 1.4 is to produce a 100,000 Btu/h heating effect. How
much power does this device require, in hp? [28.1 hp]

6. A heat pump is used to maintain a house at a constant temperature of 23°C. The

house is losing heat to the outside air through the walls and the windows at a rate of
60,000 kJ/h while the energy generated within the house from people, lights, and
appliances amounts to 4000 kJ/h. for a COP of 2.5, determine the required power
input to the heat pump. [6.22 kW]

7. A heat engine is operating on a Carnot cycle and has a thermal efficiency of 75

percent. The waste heat from this engine is rejected to a nearby lake at 60°F at a rate
of 800 Btu/min. Determine (a) the power output of the engine and (b) the
temperature of the source. [56.6 hp, 2080°R]

8. A completely reversible heat engine operates with a source at 1500°R and a sink at
500°R. At what rate must heat be supplied to this engine, in Btu/h, for it to produce 5
hp? [19,100 Btu/h]

9. An inventor claims to have devised a cyclical engine for use in space vehicles that
operates with a nuclear-fuel-generated energy source whose temperature is 1000R
and a sink at 550°R that radiates waste heat to deep space. He also claims that this
engine produces 5 hp while rejecting heat at a rate of 15,000 Btu/h. Is this claim
valid? [No – prove it!]
10. A heat pump is used to maintain a house at 22°C by extracting heat from the outside
air on a day when the outside air temperature is 2°C. The house is estimated to lose
heat at a rate of 110,000 kJ/h, and the heat pump consumes 5 kW of electric power
when running. Is this heat pump powerful enough to do the job? [Yes – prove it!]

11. Two kilograms of water execute a Carnot power cycle. During the isothermal
expansion, the water is heated until it is a saturated vapor from an initial state where
the pressure is 40 bar and the quality is 15%. The vapor then expands adiabatically to
a pressure of 1.5 bar while doing 491.5 kJ/kg of work. (a) Sketch the cycle on p-υ
coordinates. (b) Evaluate the heat and work for each process, in kJ. (c) Evaluate the
thermal efficiency.
[Wnet = Qnet = 773.8 kJ, (c) 26.5%]

12. One kilogram of air as an ideal gas executes a Carnot power cycle having a thermal
efficiency of 60%. The heat transfer to the air during the isothermal expansion is 40
kJ. At the end of the isothermal expansion, the pressure is 5.6 bar and the volume is
0.3 m3. Determine: (a) The maximum and minimum temperature for the cycle, in K.
(b) The pressure and volume at the beginning of the isothermal expansion in bar and
m3, respectively. (c) The work and heat transfer for each of the four processes, in kJ.
(d) Sketch the cycle on p-υ coordinates.
[Wnet = Qnet = 24 kJ, (a) 585.4 K, 234.2 K, (b) 7 bar, 0.24 m3]