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Teaching Transport Phenomena Around A Cup of Coffe
Teaching Transport Phenomena Around A Cup of Coffe
The object of this column is to enhance our readers' collections of interesting and novel prob-
lems in chemical engineering. Problems of the type that can be used to motivate the student by
presenting a particular principle in class, or in a new light, or that can be assigned as a novel home
problem, are requested, as well as those that are more traditional in nature and that elucidate dif-
ficult concepts. Manuscripts should not exceed 14 double-spaced pages and should be accompanied
by the originals of any figures or photographs. Please submit them to Professor James 0. Wilkes
(e-mail: [email protected]), Chemical Engineering Department, University of Michigan, Ann
Arbor, Ml 48109-2136.
W
e are all aware that teaching scientific matter is
much more accepted by students when it can be discharge. Another very important characteristic of the study
related to situations they can experience in their is that experiments to assess the modeling are easy to perform
everyday life. A good example is the cooling of a cup of cof- with very simple tools, such as a thermometer, a stopwatch,
fee, whose scientific analysis is much more instructive than and a balance (to estimate the loss by evaporation). Such ex-
we could have thought at first sight. Indeed, we will see that periments could even be done in a kitchen, in full accordance
all heat transfer mechanisms (conduction, convection, and with the "everyday life" aspect of the situation. The method
radiation), as well as those of mass transfer, (because of the to approach the problem, and the reflection about transport
evaporation of the coffee) are involved. This problem was phenomena that it induces, make it a good basis for discus-
often addressed as "leisure in science" or "first approach sion between students and teachers. To avoid a lengthy paper,
of science," and a quick search on the Web shows that this all equations given here are not discussed deeply and, for a
problem has been proposed at all levels of education, from student, may deserve an additional look into textbooks or,
beginning to university. The approach presented here is aimed better, a discussion with teachers.
at being rigorous, but because we do not intend to use very
powerful numerical modeling, simplifications will be made.
Jean Stephane Condoret is a professor
An important quality for an engineer is to make the "right" of chemical engineering at the lnstitut Na-
simplification, i.e., which results only in slight inaccuracies, tional Polytechnique of Toulouse (France).
He graduated in 1977 from the lnstitut de
while respecting the correct hierarchy for the parameters. In Genie Chimique in Toulouse. His Ph.D. thesis
the case chosen here no chemical reaction is present, but the dealt with heat and mass transfer in packed
beds. Since 1987, he has been involved in
coupling of heat and mass transfer in a nonstationary process supercritical technology for chemistry and
is a common situation in chemical engineering. It can be biochemistry.
encountered, for instance, in small industrial units when a
.
area,g1ven b y: U we = 1 + Dew D (3)
hnv +hR A e+ i
w 2D e
No heat loss at the bottom and
(4)
Figure 1. Schematics of the fluxes.
138 Chemical Engineering Education
We need to evaluate the coefficient h nv for free convection surface. From Reference 2, for air, it is given by:
at the vertical wall. An equation for such a heat transfer coef-
ficient can be found in:[ 2J
hns
( r
= 1.31l 0 ~eea) (9)
wall temperature, so, for estimation of these coefficients, we An important feature is now to estimate the mass transfer co-
will equate the outer wall temperature to that of the liquid. efficient k . This can be done using the analogy between heat
It results in some inaccuracy for hnv and hR. Eventually, this and mass transfer, as first proposed by Chilton and Colburn. [6l
inaccuracy is likely to be weak because, for usual materials For the air-water system, because the Lewis number, Le, is
and thicknesses, the thermal resistance of the wall is low in close to 1, it gives[7l:
respect to the outer thermal resistance, and the outer wall
temperature is actually not very different from the inner wall (13)
temperature. It does not mean that the thermal resistance
of the wall is neglected here, because it does appear in the The molar density of the flux is then
equation of U [Eq. (3)]. The extreme case of an insulating
wall (as for an expanded polystyrene cup, see paragraph 4) Nwat = h~ ;(Pv(0)-0.5Pv(0a)) (14)
9)1:air Pair
where the inaccuracy is maximum is well described because
the "inaccurate" term has a weak numerical influence in the After some rearrangements, using the perfect gas law, mass
computation of U [Eq. (3)]. flux is:
Heat loss, by Heat Transfer Only, at the Surface of W = hns9J1wat l A. (P (0)-0.5P (0 )) (15)
the Liquid, o. wat 9)1:airCPair F s1 v v a
It also occurs by free convection and radiation, in parallel, Now, knowing the evaporative mass flux, the heat loss by
and is accounted for by a global coefficient hs with: evaporation, Q evap , is given by:
hs = hns +hRs (7) (16)
Qs = hsAsJ0 - 0a) (8) where Af-lv is the heat of vaporization of water per kg of
hns represents the coefficient for free convection at a horizontal water.
r
can be found at <http://lgc.inp-toulouse.fr/intemet/pers/condoret.
·~
6
htm>.
60
RESULTS OF THE MODELING AND
.. 55
~ >,-...
COMPARISON WITH EXPERIMENTS •
The experimental apparatus, including a numerical thermometer, 50
a balance, and a stopwatch, is seen in Figure 2. Three different
45
porcelain cups (No.'s 1, 2, and 3) were used filled with water. The
cups were put on the balance plate, hot water from an electric kettle 40
was poured in, and the temperature and mass variation of the liquid 0 200 400 600 800 1000
were recorded. A piece of insulating material was set under the cups tlme(s)
to prevent direct contact with the balance plate. It proved to be ~)85
useful with respect to hypothesis 3. Physical and geometrical data
80
are given in Table 1. Figures 3 a, b, and c presents the comparison r,.~........ _
computations (indeed, cup No. 2, which gave the best results, had ;; ,.·.,..,__
60
a small handle). Figure 4 also presents good agreement between ........!(....... __
Figures 3. Variation of th
© e 80
temperature of the liquid
75 ~
-~
for the 3 different cups :
a) cup No. 1, M = 78.6 g -10
"'.
- ~---
ea= 22.3 °C, ea= 82.5 °C'
0
e; 65
(• : experiment;--: model) -
b) cup No. 2, M = 102.9 g
ea= 21.8 °C, ea= 79 °C'
0 ! 60 -- --- ~
{J..: experiment;
--:model;
i 55 -- --- ---I-~
-• ....____
-------: simplified model; 50 -- ---
-----: model withou t
45
evaporation )
c) cup No. 3, M = 87.2 g 40
ea= 21.1 °C, ea= 80 °C' 0 200 400 600 800 1000
Figure 2. Experimental apparatus. {• :experiment;--: model) tlme(s)
(19)
110 Nevertheless, even with the proposed averaging, Eq. (19) has still no
obvious analytical solution, due to the exponential term in the expression
105 of Pv(8). But, if the function Pv(8) is approximated by a parabolic equa-
100
..... -
-
·--- ~ tion, Pv(e) = be 2 + ce + d, we can propose an analytical solution. We found
by numerical fitting, that
95 b =18.367 c =-1237.2 d = 27753 in the range 40 °C to 80 °C
In this case, Eq. (19) is a differential equation with separated variables,
80 .
- - • -
-·--- ---·- - •-
whose solution is:
t ( 8) (
= M Cp
Owat
+ mCp )( 2 (2bB8+A+cB) 2
- arctan - - - - - - - arctan - - - - -
cw w w w
(2bB8+A+cB)) (20)
r---
75 - - with
2 2 2 2
w=.J-4bBA0" +4bB dm-A +2AcB-c B (21)
70
0 200 400 600 800 (22)
lime(s)
970
E
0.924
0
TABLE2
Numerical Values Given by the Model for Experiment of Cup No. 2 (M 0 = 0.1029 kg, 0 0 = 21.8 °C)
Values are in SI units as given in the nomenclature.
time temp. mass(g) Qevap Qw Qs hnw hns hRw hRs Uwe
0 79.0 102.9 12.0 8.6 2.1 7.5 7.4 7.1 7.6 14.1
90 75.2 102.5 9.5 7.8 1.9 7.3 7.3 7.0 7.5 13.9
180 71.9 102.1 7.8 7.2 1.7 7.2 7.2 6.9 7.3 13.7
270 69.0 101.8 6.6 6.7 1.6 7.1 7.1 6.8 7.2 13.5
360 66.3 101.5 5.6 6.3 1.5 7.0 7.0 6.7 7.2 13.3
450 64.0 101.3 4.9 5.9 1.4 6.9 6.9 6.6 7.1 13.2
540 61.8 101.1 4.3 5.5 1.3 6.8 6.8 6.5 7.0 13.0
630 59.8 101.0 3.8 5.2 1.2 6.7 6.7 6.5 6.9 12.9
720 58.0 100.8 3.4 4.9 1.2 6.7 6.6 6.4 6.9 12.7
810 56.3 100.7 3.1 4.6 1.1 6.6 6.6 6.4 6.8 12.6
900 54.7 100.6 2.8 4.4 1.0 6.5 6.5 6.3 6.8 12.5