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ENCH496 Assignment: Humidification and Drying Technologies

(Weight: 15% of the final marks of the course, Due date: 5 pm Friday, 24th May 2013) 1. (30/100) A recently installed cooling tower was guaranteed by the manufacturer to cool down a water stream at mass flow rate of 126.2kg/s from 43C to 30C when the available air has dry-bulb/wet-bulb temperatures of 25C/20C. The tower cross section area is 6 m2. A test on the tower, when operated at full fan capacity, provided the following data: Inlet water from the tower top: 126.2 kg/s, 46C Outlet water from the tower bottom: 25.5C Inlet air at tower bottom: Dry-bulb temperature 25C, wet-bulb temperature 15C Outlet air at the tower top: 37.5C, wet-bulb temperature 30C. a. What is the fan capacity in kg/s? b. Can the tower be expected to meet the guaranteed conditions? Give reasons. 2. (20/100) A stream of water at adiabatic saturation temperature of 23C is recirculated through a 5-meter (height) humidification tower (feeding from top) to control the humidity of a stream of mixture of 50% humid air and 50% fresh air. The mixture stream is fed from the tower bottom and exits from the tower top. The following conditions are known: The humid air humidity: Yhumid = 0.017 kg/kg The fresh air dry-bulb temperature and humidity: Tfresh = 22C, Yfresh = 0.008 kg/kg The combined dry air flow rate: 5 kg/m2s The mass transfer coefficient: kYa = 0.8 kg/m3s The operation pressure: 101330 Pa Determine: i. Outlet air humidity from the tower (Y2), ii. Inlet air temperature to the tower (TG1), iii. Air temperature of the humid air stream before mixing (Thumid). (Psychrometric charts may be used).

3. (50/100) A timber drying kiln is used to dry softwood timber. The board dimensions are 100 mm wide, 50mm thick and 5 m long. The kiln stack is 2.4 m wide, 3 m high and 10 m long. The wood basic density is 400 kg/m3 and the initial moisture content of the timber is 150% (dry-base). The drying conditions are: dry-bulb temperature 90C, wet-bulb temperature 60C, air velocity of 5 m/s in the 20mm stick gaps in the stack. The following parameters are known: Critical moisture content Xcr = 0.40 kg/kg, equilibrium moisture content Xe = 0.035 kg/kg. Constant drying rate at 90/60C: jvw = 0.00015 kg/m2s. 1). If the drying medium (air) flows in only one direction, determine the drying time for the front row of boards to final moisture content of 0.1 kg/kg. Assuming the relative drying rate is a simple linear function of characteristic moisture content (f=). 2). Assuming that in the constant drying rate period for the front row calculated above, the whole stack of wood is dried from the initial moisture content of 1.5 kg/kg to an average moisture content of 0.5 kg/kg. Determine in this period: a) the proportion of humid air to be vented to maintain the required air humidity at the inlet side, b) the heating load; c) the heat loss from exhaust air venting. The ambient air has dry-bulb/wet-bulb temperatures of 25C/15C.

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