November 5, 2015 ME331: THERMODYNAMICS EXAM 2
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1. (40%) Steam enters the turbine of a vapor power plant operating on the Rankine cycle with a pressure of
12 MPa and a temperature of 560 °C and expands adiabatically in the turbine and leaves as saturated
vapor at 8 kPa. Saturated liquid exits the condenser and is pumped to the boiler by the pump with an
isentropic efficiency of 0.85.
a) Draw a simple schematic of this cycle showing its principal devices and its T-s diagram indicating the 4
principal states of the water.
Find:
b) The heat transfer to the working fluid per unit mass passing through the boiler, in kJ/kg
c) The work developed by the TURBINE per unit mass passing through the system, in kJ/kg
d) The net work of the cycle per unit mass passing through the system, in kJ/kg
e) The thermal efficiency of the cycle
f) Does this turbine operate reversibly or irreversibly? Explain.
g) Would the thermal efficiency of this cycle increase very significantly, if the pump operated reversibly?
Explain.
h) Compare the thermal efficiency to the efficiency of a hypothetical Carnot cycle operating between the
same maximum and minimum temperatures as in the Rankine cycle, and explain why there is such a
large difference between the efficiencies.
2. (40%) Consider an air-standard Diesel cycle with p1= 95 kPa, V1=0.015 m3 and T1=300 K. The
compression ratio is 18.106 and the temperature at the end of the head addition process is 1300 K.
a) Draw simple P-v and T-s diagrams for this cycle
Find:
b) the mass of air in the cylinder, in kg.
c) the heat added per cycle, in kJ
d) the heat rejected per cycle, in kJ
e) the net work of the cycle, in kJ
f) the thermal efficiency of the cycle
3. (15%)Air enters an insulated compressor operating at steady state at 1 atm, 17 °C with a mass flow rate
of 1500 kg/h and exits at 4.331 atm. Determine the minimum theoretical power input required, in KW,
and the corresponding theoretical exit temperature, in °C.
In the presence of any internal irreversibilities the exit temperature will a) decrease, b) be the same, or c)
increase, as compared to the temperature corresponding to the ideal operation of the compressor. (Choose
one and explain)
4. (5%) Estimate the thermal efficiency of a four-stroke spark ignition internal combustion engine for
which the volume at bottom dead center is 1.6 liter and at top dead center is 0.2 liter. cp=1.005 kJ/kg/K
and cv=0.718 kJ/kg/K.
