Thermal Fluid Sciences

Coffee Machine Lab Report

Student Name:

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Table of Contents
1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 3
2 Equipment ............................................................................................................................................. 3
3 Methodology ......................................................................................................................................... 4
4 Observations ......................................................................................................................................... 4
5 Results ................................................................................................................................................... 4
5.1 Heat loss ........................................................................................................................................ 5
5.2 Cost of keeping the coffee hot ...................................................................................................... 6
6 Discussion ............................................................................................................................................. 6
References ..................................................................................................................................................... 7
1 Introduction
Coffee machine consists of a reservoir which contains a specific volume of water. The reservoir contains a
hole through which a tube passes and water flows through this tube. The purpose of this tube is to carry
both hot and cold water. This tube provides a path to water to flow through a pipe made of aluminum. This
pipe transfers the heat from the heating element to water through conduction. There is a warming plate
having a conductive grease that helps to heat up the water more efficiently. The heating element in a coffee
machine has a wire in a coil form. The purpose of keeping this shape is to increase the surface area and to
improve the heat transfer rate. The heating element transfer heat as electric current flows through it. The
aluminum pipe is then connected to another tube. This tube carries hot water to the showerhead. The tube
does this job because when water is heated up and boils by the heating element, the bubbles rise and carry
the hot water along them due to pressure difference. There is a one way valve in coffee machine which
prevents the reverse flow of water and keeps its flow in only one direction i.e. towards the shower head.
After hot water enters the shower head, it is in pressurized form and gets evenly sprinkled over the coffee
beans. Once the coffee beans have been brewed, the heating element keeps the coffee warm. This helps in
keeping the coffee warm for other people in the house.
Heat transfer rate is the basic phenomenon which we see in our daily life. Heat is transferred from one place
or body to another place or body through conduction, convection or radiation. In conduction, heat transfer
takes place between two solid bodies due to interaction of particles. In convection, heat transfers from one
place to another through a medium. This medium is a fluid which can be either a liquid or a gas. Heat is
transferred in convection when fluid flows from one place to another and takes heat energy with it in the
form of temperature. In radiation, medium is not required for heat transfer. There is a material which is
continuously emitting waves in the form of energy. These waves transfer heat to another body which is in
interaction with the radiating body.
In this experiment, the working of coffee machine has been observed and different modes of heat transfer
has been analyzed and bodies and places are identified in order to analyze that through which mode heat
transfer is taking place. Different design considerations are taken into account while designing coffee
machines. First the radiation takes place from heater to heating plate then conduction from heating plate to
aluminum tube and again conduction and also convection from aluminum tube to the water.There are some
problems that can be faced during coffee machine operation. The machine can fail to operate its function
when the switch stops working or the one way valve gets clogged and does not let the water to flow towards
the showerhead. So, the coffee machines should be checked on regular intervals for its efficient operation.

2 Equipment
Materials and equipment used in this experiment were:

 Water: This is using as a working fluid of coffee machine.

 Coffee machine: Acting as a plant to conduct the experiment.
 Stopwatch: It would be used to measure the change of temperature of water with time.
 Thermocouple: Instrument to measure the temperature of water.
 Mass Balance: It would be used to weigh few things including jug.
 Laptop: To make a comprehensive report of what would be done in the experiment.
3 Methodology
First of all mass of empty jug was determined using mass balance. Then a specific amount of water was
measured by cup lines in a measuring cup. The measured amount of water was poured into the reservoir.
The coffee machine was turned on. The operation of machine was carefully observed. The modes of heat
transfer in coffee machine were analyzed. Coffee machine was let to heat the water. Once the jug was filled
with the original quantity of hot water, the jug was removed from the machine and was placed on the
observation table. The stopwatch was started and the temperature of the water was noted for 30 minutes at
regular intervals. The data of water temperature with respect to the time was collected and arranged in
excel. The graph was plotted and analyzed.

4 Observations
Mass of jar = 445g = 0.445kg
Mass of water = 324g = 0.324kg

5 Results
The results of change in water temperature with time are shown below:
Table 1: Temperature of water noted after every one minute for 30 minutes

Time (mins) Temp (c)

0 78.4
1 75.5
2 74.1
3 72.8
4 71.9
5 71.0
6 70.2
7 69.5
8 68.8
9 68.0
10 67.2
11 66.5
12 65.9
13 65.2
14 64.5
15 63.8
16 63.1
17 62.5
18 61.9
19 61.3
20 60.8
21 60.2
22 59.6
23 59.1
 24 58.5
25 58.0
26 57.5
27 57.0
28 56.5
29 56.0
30 55.5
31 55.0
From results in table 1, the graph between time and temperature was plotted, as shown in figure below:

Graph showing change in temperature of

heated water over time
90 Series1
Temperature, T (degrees celcius)

80 Linear (Series1)
70
60
50
40 y = -0.6754x + 74.712
30
20
10
0
0 10 20 30 40
Time, t (minutes)

Figure 1: Graph between time and temperature of water noted at every minute

In order to find the slope of the curve, a linear curve fit was drawn that would pass through the maximum
data points in the graph. So, from regression equation in fig.1, it can be seen that the rate of change of
T
temperature with respect to time i.e. = –0.6754 C/min. The reason of plotting all the data points on
t
the graph to plot regression line was that it could not be predicted that temperature versus time relationship
is linear i.e. temperature of water does not decrease at the same rate as the time passes.

5.1 Heat loss

From temperature gradient, rate of heat loss is determined as:

T
Q.  mc
t
Where, c is specific heat capacity of water; which is 4.18 KJ/kg.C.
So, heat loss is calculated as:
 Q.  0.324  4.18(0.6754)  0.9147kW  914.7077W
The minus indicates that the heat is being lost by the water as the time passes. This would be the power
required by the electric heater to heat up 0.324 kg of water.

5.2 Cost of keeping the coffee hot

In United Kingdom, cost of electricity per watt per hour is 3.80p. If this cost is divided by 3600, then the
cost would be 0.001055p per watt. As the power consumed by the heater is 914.7077W, the cost for this
heating operation would be ( 0.001055  914.077 ) = 0.96435p.

6 Discussion
The purpose of whole report was to analyze the operation of coffee machine and observe how efficiently it
heats up water to a certain temperature and how much it would consume electricity to do this operation.
There are different modes of heat transfer, taking place in coffee machine. The most important is the
conduction. The conductive heat transfer takes place in the aluminum tube as well as in warming plate. The
heat supplied from the electric heater to the water was through conduction. After that, the whole mass of
water was heated through convection process. One assumption taken in this experiment while determining
the power of heater was that there was no heat lost to surroundings from the coffee maker. This experiment
could have been done in a better way as there was no standard value taken to compare the results in this
experiment. One way to check the validity of the results was to measure the resistance of electric heater
first. Then from this heat generated by electric heater could be determined and from this value we could
compare our experiment results and analyze the further errors in that.
As far as performance of the coffee machine is concerned, the coffee machine should have proper insulation
so that less heat is lost to surroundings from reservoir. There is some error in heat lost determined in this
experiment as the resistance of the jug and convection effects of ambient air were neglected. By calculating
the resistance of glass jug, the heat loss can be determined more accurately. There might be chances of
errors in the results. The causes of those errors include:

 Stopwatch might not be started instantly after jug was removed from coffee machine.
 There might be error in mass balance to measure the mass of jug and water as this parameter was
used in heat transfer equation to determine the heat loss.
 The person who was noting the time might not have noted the time and temperature of water at that
time properly for thirty minutes.
 There might be error in temperature measuring instrument thermocouple
There is an improvement that can be made in the coffee machine for minimum losses and better efficiency.
The coffee can be redesigned to make it from insulating material, with a glass lower at the middle. The
reason for glass is to increase the resistance of the jug at its base. As in conduction, heat transfer occurs at
micro level and it is very fast between solids. When the coffee jug is placed at some base, there is a contact
between two solid bodies through which conductive heat transfer can take place and heat can loss to
surroundings. Due to this reason, bottom of coffee jug should be made of glass so that heat loss can be
decreased and the cost of electricity spent on operating coffee machine can be reduced to minimum. Another
reason for glass material at the base of coffee jug is that it will allow the observer to look how much coffee
is left in the jug.
References
How Coffee Makers Work. (2019). Retrieved 15 December 2019, from
http://home.howstuffworks.com/coffee-maker.html
bill, H. (2019). Compare Energy Prices Per kWh | Gas & Electric Per Unit | UKPower. Retrieved 15
December 2019, from https://www.ukpower.co.uk/home_energy/tariffs-per-unit-kwh
Çengel, Y., & Turner, R. (2001). Fundamentals of thermal-fluid sciences. Boston: McGraw-Hill.