Thermodynamics

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Thermodynamics is basically concerned with heat transfer, energy transfer and conversion between heat and work and is also applied to describe phase change of a substance, such as condensation and evaporation.

1.1 Determination of steam quality

Saturated water is water in the condition in which any amount of energy put into the water or absorbed by the water can result in water-steam, two phase mixture, formed. In this case, latent heat, enthalpy of evaporation, is referred to as the energy required to change water into steam. Steam quality is referred to the percentage weight of the steam in a mixture of steam and water, that is, dry saturated steam contains no water. (Babcock & Wilcox Co., 2007).

Saturated steam, which is steam at equilibrium with water, can only exit at specific pressure and corresponding temperature. Provided any change of temperature and pressure is made, the condition of steam will be impacted. For example, if the temperature is decreased, or increasing the pressure, there will be amount of steam condensed and then wet steam formed. Otherwise, a large pressure drop can bring saturated steam into superheated steam. The relationship of water and steam can be found from temperature – entropy diagram.

It can be realised from the T-S diagram, that the condition of being steam-water mixture is at somewhere between that of saturated water and that of saturated steam. If any change of pressure or temperature of the water-steam mixture can lead the mixture to be saturated water or saturated steam.

Obviously, when there is amount of moisture present in steam, it will contribute to the energy consumed or heat utilised which rises the temperature of the moisture to that of the steam. (Babcock & Wilcox Co., ...

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...be moved by the difference in density of the air. In this case, the convection is called natural convection. The heat transfer rate of forced convection is basically higher than that of natural convection. It causes that the surface temperature in forced convection is lower than that in natural convection.

As previous mention, the heat transfer due to radiation is different from convection as well as conduction. The heat transfer due to radiation can be considered as a result of the changes in the electronic configurations of the atoms or molecules. (Cengel, 2007) owing to the fact that the heat transfer due to radiation does not require the presence of medium of passing or transferring heat, it is faster than the heat transfer due to convection. For example, in the experiment, the heat transfer due to radiation occurred in both of the part 1 and part 2.

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