Fall 2011
MAE 3309-001 Final Project (25 pts max)
Project assigned on November 10, 2011 Project due on December 1, 2011 Please select one from the problems in page 2 as your project. It requires a professionally-written report and a PowerPoint presentation summarizing the most important aspects of the project. Guidelines (1) Form a team to work on this project. Number of team members not to exceed 6. (2) Perform all analytical work, starting with equations used and all algebraic steps taken, and attach scratch pages as an Appendix to your written report (3) Use a computer program to calculate the variation in parameters, and plot the data. (4) Use a word processing application to write your report. As a minimum, the report should include the following sections: Title of the Project and List of Authors Abstract (a short one-paragraph summary of the problem, written in your own words) 1. Introduction (to describe the problem, to show applicable equations and supply required data, given in the problem and data you had to get from Tables, and to explain how you will perform the calculations, i.e., Excel spreadsheets, textbook software package, or your own computer program) 2. Analysis (to describe the steps of your analysis - a sketch of the system you are evaluating should provide details to support the analysis) 3. Results (include plots, tables, and figures to emphasize your results. 4. Discussion and Conclusions (discuss main issues and meaning of results) 5. List of References and Individual Discussion: Each student in the team is required to write about the role of Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer in the practice of the engineering discipline the student is pursuing. Please do not write that this branch of physics has no role in engineering! Minimum half page, not including images.
(5) The PowerPoint presentation should include at least 5 charts - focus on the most important aspects of the project - On the cover page include names of all students that performed the work. IMPORTANT NOTE: What the team submits will be graded on a scale from 0 to 25. Everything counts: analysis, written report, presentation. Thus, try to perform a professional job. Each student in the team must contribute to the project. And for Part 5 of the Report, each entry must show the name of the student and the engineering discipline the student is pursuing.
Problem 1: Home Solar Heating with Solar Panels Solar radiation is incident on the outer cover of a solar collector at a rate of 700 W/m2. A typical cover can transmit between 70 and 90 percent of the incident radiation. To meet the hot water needs of a family in summer you first consider installing two collectors that cover a roof area of 1.2 m 2 m. To be safe for handling, the temperature of the cover cannot exceed 35C. You can assume the effective sky temperature for radiation exchange between the glass cover and the open sky is 40C. For the size of the tubes attached to the absorber plate the water flow rate can be 1.0, 1.2, 1.5, or 1.75 kg/min. Assuming the back surface of the absorber plate is heavily insulated and that the only heat loss occurs from the external cover in the collector, you must calculate (a) the total rate of heat loss from the collector, (b) the collector efficiency (the ratio of the amount of heat transferred to the water to the solar energy incident on the collector), and (c) the temperature rise of water as it flows through the collector. The project issue that needs to be resolved: Can this solar collector be used to heat water in the house all year long? Explain based on your analysis. The project variables: (1) solar collector size, (2) ambient air temperature, (3) wind velocity, (4) emissivity of the solar plate cover, and (5) the rate of water flow passing through the tubes attached to absorber plate.
Problem 2: Cooling for Electrical Transformers You need to cool two electrical transformers by attaching a heat sink to their top surface. One heat sink (4 in 2.5 in wide) has seven fins which are 0.2 in high, 0.1 in thick, and 4 in long. You install a fan to blow air parallel to the passages between the fins. For the first transformer (of size 4 in long, 2.5 in wide, and 2 in high) the heat sink is to dissipate 20 W of heat and the base temperature of the heat sink must not exceed 130F to avoid overheating. The second transformer is twice as big and the heat sink must dissipate 25 W. Calculate the minimum freestream velocity the fan needs to supply to avoid overheating. Assume the base plate and the fins are nearly isothermal. Keep in mind that in the radiation heat transfer calculations you must use the base area of the finned surface (not the total surface area). Also, use Netwons law of cooling for a finned surface. The project issue that needs to be resolved: Can your cool the transformer more efficiently with a heat sink made of polished aluminum or one that is black anodized? Explain based on your analysis. The project variables: (1) transformer size, (2) air temperature, (3) air velocity, (4) emissivity of the heat sink, and (5) amount of heat to be dissipated.
