Tutorial - Steam Basics

Q1
A 4 m × 5 m × 7 m room in the administration building of a dairy plant is heated by the radiator of a steam heating
system. The steam radiator transfers heat at a rate of 10,000 kJ/h and a 100 W fan is used to distribute the warm
air in the room. The heat losses from the room are estimated to be at a rate of about 5000 kJ/h.
a) If the initial temperature of the room air is 10°C, determine how long it will take for the air temperature to
rise to 20 °C.
b) If 3 bar steam is used, calculate the steam requirement for keeping the room at 20 °C (running load)
c) However, excess steam is required for maintaining the temperature steadily at 20 °C. The senior manager
noted the possible cause may be the presence of air. He asked a newly recruited process engineer to install
a thermocouple in addition to the currently available pressure gauge which indicated 3 bar. The temperature
reading was found as 124 °C.
(i) How can you verify the presence of air by the method suggested by the senior manager?
(ii) What is the percentage of steam in air?
(iii) Calculate the percentage of excess steam requirement.
(iv) How does the presence of air affect the performance of a heat exchanger?
(v) Under what conditions the same radiator can be used to achieve the required heat transfer when
air is present in steam?
(vi) What are the other effects of the presence of air in steam?
(vii) How does the air enter the steam distribution system?
(viii) What are the options available for minimizing the presence of air in steam?
d) Senior manager was so concerned about the percentage of air present in the steam. Since the same steam is
used at 3 bar pressure to make hot water for CIP system in the dairy plant and the required temperature of
75 C could not be achieved even by increasing the steam flow rate. The heating coil of the hot water tank
is currently running under full load capacity and the running load for using saturated steam at 3 bar to
maintain the hot water temperature at 75 C is 20 kW.
(i) What are the possible causes for not able to achieve the required hot water temperature of 75 C?
(ii) One option is to increase the heat transfer area. Calculate the additional area requirement in the
heat exchanger to have the same heat transfer rate.
(iii) Alternatively, without modifying the heating coil, same heat transfer can be achieved by increasing
the steam pressure. The steam pressure was increased until the hot water temperature could be
maintained at 75 C. Determine the new readings of the pressure gauge and the thermocouple
attached to the heating coil. Also calculate the percentage of excess steam flow compared to the
original design.
(iv) Compare and contrast the 2 options in (ii) and (iii)

Assumptions
1. Specific heat of air is constant at Cp = 1.007 kJ/kg.K and R = 0.287 KJ/kg.K
2. Pressure in the room remains constant and negligible amount of air leaks out during expansion.
3. Steam enters the radiator as saturated vapor and leaves as saturated liquid.
 The overall heat transfer coefficient for unfinned shell-and-tube is given by
𝟏 𝟏 𝟏 𝑹𝒇,𝒊 𝒍𝒏(𝑫𝒐 ⁄𝑫𝒊 ) 𝑹𝒇,𝒐 𝟏
= =𝑹= = + + +
𝑼𝒊 𝑨𝒊 𝑼𝒐 𝑨𝒐 𝒉𝒊 𝑨𝒊 𝑨𝒊 𝟐𝝅𝒌𝑳 𝑨𝒐 𝒉𝒐 𝑨𝒐

Q2
a) Two carbon steel (λ = 50 W/m °C) jacketed kettles with an inner wall thickness of 15mm are used to heat
water. Kettle 1 uses hot water as the heat source, while Kettle 2 uses steam. Assuming heat transfer coefficients
of 1000 W/m2 °C for the water being heated, 3000 W/m2 °C for hot water, and 10000 W/m2 °C for steam,
calculate the U values for both heating processes.
b) Now imagine that the same two kettles are lined with glass of 1mm thickness (λ = 0.9 W/m °C). Calculate the
U values for both heating processes including the glass lining.
c) When steam contains air, heat transfer is significantly affected due to forming an air layer on the heat transfer
surface. Suppose an air layer 0.1 mm thick (λ = 0.025 W/m °C) is formed in the steam-side of the Kettle 2.
Calculate the modified U value for Kettle 2 to include the effect of air layer (without including the glass
lining).
d) Compare and contrast your answers.

Q3
a) A double-pipe (shell-and-tube) heat exchanger is constructed of a stainless steel (k = 15.1 W/m °C) inner tube
of inner diameter Di = 1.5 cm and outer diameter Do = 1.9 cm and an outer shell of inner diameter 3.2 cm.
The convection heat transfer coefficient is given to be hi = 800 W/m2 °C on the inner surface of the tube and
ho = 1200 W/m2 °C on the outer surface. For a fouling factor of Rf,i = 0.0004 m2 °C/ W on the tube side and
Rf,o = 0.0001 m2 °C/ W on the shell side determine
(i) the thermal resistance of the heat exchanger per unit length and
(ii) the overall heat transfer coefficients, Ui and Uo based on the inner and outer surface areas of the tube,
respectively.
b) What are the common causes of fouling in a heat exchanger? How does fouling affect heat transfer and
pressure drop?
c) How is the thermal resistance due to fouling in a heat exchanger accounted for? How do the fluid velocity
and temperature affect fouling?

Q4
Steam in the condenser of a power plant is to be condensed at a temperature of 30°C with cooling water from a
nearby lake, which enters the tubes of the condenser at 14°C and leaves at 22°C. The average surface area of the
tubes is 45 m2, and the overall heat transfer coefficient is 2100 W/m2 °C.
a) Determine the mass flow rate of the cooling water needed and the rate of condensation of the steam in the
condenser.
b) The performance of the condenser was found to be gradually dropping and the reason was identified as
fouling. If Fouling factor for water is 0.0002 m2 °C/ W and for steam is 0.0001 m2 °C/ W, calculate the overall
heat transfer coefficient including the effect of fouling and comment on your answer.
c) Without further calculations describe the possible scenarios on cooling water requirement to condense the
same amount of steam to the required temperature of 30 C.