ChE 3E04 – Process Model Formulation and Solution

Fall 2012 – Homework 1 Version 3

Due: Friday Sept 28, in class Note: to be performed in groups of up to three.
Grading:100 pts. Weight: 5% of total course grade.

OBJECTIVES

Learn and demonstrate skills with:

 Linear algebra properties
 Using MATLAB to solve matrix equations
 Basic programming skills with MATLAB
 Using modeling and MATLAB to help solve engineering problems
 Model building using chemical thermodynamic properties
 Numerical error and limitations of computers as machines.

SUBMISSION

The method of submission of your answer for each question or part of question will vary. Typically,
anything that can be checked by computer will be submitted to Avenue to Learn, and anything
which must be viewed by humans will be submitted in hardcopy.

[A2LQuiz] - This symbol means to submit your answer to the online quiz on Avenue to Learn

[A2LDropBox] - This symbol means to submit your answer to the drop box on Avenue to Learn

[ONPaper] - This symbol means to submit your answer in hard copy.

Always have all names and student numbers on any printed out / hardcopies.

QUESTIONS

You are the chemical engineer in charge of energy efficiency and sustainability on your company’s
design team. One of your contributions to an ongoing chemical process design project will be the
design of a heat exchanger network to reduce the amount of heating and cooling utilities that must
be purchased, thus improving the efficiency of the plant.

Because your team is still in the design stage, you don’t know all the details about the system you
will be working with. So far, you know there will be two hot streams (HA and HB) and two cold
streams (CA and CB) and that you will use four heat exchangers (W, X, Y, and Z) as shown in Figure 1
on the next page.

Because certain upstream decisions have not yet been made, you don’t know what the flow rates of
those streams are going to be yet, or even what the streams will be made of.

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Figure 1: A heat exchanger network.

We can start learning about this system and asking questions about it before we even know what
chemicals we’re going to be dealing with. Let’s build a model! Make the following assumptions
throughout this assignment:

Assumptions:
 The system is at steady state
 The heat capacity of a stream does not change with temperature (warning, not typical!!)
 All streams are supposed to be in the liquid phase in real life.
 All heat exchangers have COUNTERCURRENT flow  used in Q8.
 Assume no heat loss from the heat exchangers to the environment.

(Q1) [2 points] – Mass Balances: How many independent total mass balance equations can you
write? By total it means that you balance the total flow rate, not independent species in a mixture
or atoms in molecules. By independent it means that you don’t have redundant equations.
[ONPaper]

(Q2) [4 points] – Mass Balances (1st Law of Thermodynamics): Write the actual mass balance
equations using the variable notation shown in Figure 1 (i.e., use F1, F2, etc…) [ONPaper]

(Q3) [2 points] – Mass Balances: How many variables are there in your balance? [ONPaper]

(Q4) [8 points] – Mass Balances: Write the mass balances as a linear matrix equation in the form
Ax = b where A is a matrix of coefficients, x is a vector of variables, and b is a vector of coefficients.
It should look something like this (but filled in and probably bigger): [ONPaper]

[ ][ ] [ ]

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(Q5) [2 points] – Mass Balances: How many equations would you need to add (or variables would
you need to eliminate) to make the system of equations square? If the system is already square,
answer “0” (that’s a zero) [ONPaper].

(Q6) [8 points] – Energy Balances (1st Law of Thermodynamics): Write the actual energy
balance equations using the variable notation shown in Figure 1 (i.e., use F1, Cp2, etc…). [ONPaper]

(Q7) [2 points] – Energy Balances: If you don’t know anything else about the system, is this set of
equations linear or nonlinear? (Think, can you write this as Ax = b where x is the vector of
unknowns? It helps to write out the vector x of unknowns first.) [ONPaper]

(Q8) [8 points] – Thermodynamic restrictions (2nd Law of Thermo): Write out the equations that
assure that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is being satisfied (that is, entropy will never get smaller
on its own.) For heat exchangers, this means that:

 When you have a hot stream and cold stream interact, the hot stream will always get colder,
and the cold stream will always get hotter.
 A hot stream will never get so cold that it will get colder than the cold stream! And the
other way around. This is called temperature crossover. For countercurrent flow, this
means that the cold outlet will never be hotter than the hot inlet, and the hot outlet will
never be colder than the cold inlet.

Write out the mathematical conditions or constraints which must be satisfied in order to ensure
your model makes physical sense in regards to the 2nd Law. Hint, there should be 16. [ONPaper]

Whew! Congrats! You’ve built a rather rigorous and general model to represent the mass
and energy behaviour of your heat exchanger network. Let’s call it MODEL A. Now let’s do
some useful stuff with it.

Scenario One - The design team wants to find out if the heat exchanger can use the network in
certain scenarios. In scenario one, the stream flows and heat capacities are all known and
constant:

F1 = 1.9 kg/sec F4 = 1.2 kg/sec F7 = 1.5 kg/sec F10=1.6 kg/sec

Cp1 = 1.1 kJ/kg-K Cp4 = 1.3 kJ/kg-K Cp7 = 1.2 kJ/kg-K Cp10 = 1.4 kJ/kg-K

(Q9) [4 points] – For scenario one, you should be trivially able to solve the mass balances. So, let’s
focus on just the energy balances. Let’s see if it is possible to cool HA from 155°C to 60°C and HB
from 125°C to 65°C and warm CA from 5°C to 65°C and CB from 5°C to 70°C, all while keeping T2
equal to 120°C. To help answer this question, write the energy balance in matrix form. Insert as
many numbers as you can. Note, if you haven’t already, you will need to employ the relationship
between intrinsic enthalpy and heat capacity. [ONPaper]

(Q10) [2 points] – For scenario one (continuing from Q9), How many equations would you need to
add (or variables would you need to eliminate) to make the new energy balance for scenario one
square? If the system is already square, answer “0” (that’s a zero) . [ONPaper]

(Q11) [2 points] – For scenario one (continuing from Q10), is the new system linear or nonlinear?
[ONPaper].

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Use MATLAB to solve this system of equations and report on the final values. NOTE. If you get
errors about a singular matrix, it means you either have too many equations (over-specified) or not
enough equations (under-specified). Check carefully. Note that the most common error will be that
you will get a singular matrix because your energy balance model is over-specified in the event that
you know all Fi and Cpi. In other words, you have too much information, or two equations that are
essentially the exact same thing (they are not independent).

(Q12) [2 points] – What is T5 in °C to the nearest 0.1°C? [ONPaper].

HINT: The answer is between 90—110°C, so if you are outside of that range you are doing
something wrong…

(Q13) [2 points] – What is T8 in °C to the nearest 0.1°C? [ONPaper].

(Q14) [2 points] – What is T11 in °C to the nearest 0.1°C? [ONPaper].

(Q15) [2 points] – Is it feasible to achieve the design objectives in scenario one? [ONPaper].

(Q16) [6 points] – Submit the MATLAB or OCTAVE code you used to solve Q13-16, both on paper
and in the Ave to Learn Dropbox [ONPaper]. [A2LDropBox].

Scenario Two. Suppose that T2 is some other temperature, but everything else is the same as in
scenario one. Find the range of T2 in which the scenario is still feasible to within 0.1°C. There are
many ways to do this. To build on your Q16 result, I suggest making a loop which solves the
problem repeatedly for different T2 in steps of 0.1°C and checks to see when the constraints become
violated. Use MATLAB/OCTAVE to solve it, however you do.

(Q17) [6 points] – What is the smallest T2 in °C to the nearest 0.1°C which allows a feasible solution?
[ONPaper].

(Q18) [6 points] – What is the largest T2 in °C to the nearest 0.1°C which allows a feasible solution?
[[ONPaper].

(Q19) [6 points] – Submit the MATLAB or OCTAVE code you used to solve this Q17-18, both on
paper and in the Ave to Learn Dropbox [ONPaper]. [A2LDropBox]

Scenario Three. Now we know that it is feasible to run the heat exchanger network under at least
some conditions, let’s ask a different problem. Suppose the new situation is that we have hot
streams that we want to cool with the same flows, inlet and outlet temperatures, and heat
capacities as before, except now we know that T2 needs to be 85°C and T5 needs to be 110°C based
on the new realities of the design. In this scenario, however, both of your cold streams are just
going to be standard process cooling water at 25°C and Cp7 = Cp10 =1 kJ/kg-K. The design team has
said that your cooling water should exit at 40°C since this can be sold to the local utility as
municipal hot water.

Now, you must determine flow rates of the cooling water needed to achieve these objectives. Note
you no longer know T11, T8, F7, or F10, among possibly others.

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(Q20) [4 points] – Go back to your MODEL A and simplify the model again into a set of non-linear
equations (write the equations). Note you can combine your mass and energy balance equations
into one set, but you should not be able to write them as a linear matrix equation! Ensure, once
again, that the system is square (same number of equations and unknowns, should be four of each),
and substitute in as many constants as you know to reduce the number of equations. [ONPaper]

(Q21) [2 points] – Notice that your same 4 equations you used in Q6 for the energy balance resulted
in 3 independent equations for scenarios one and two but 4 independent equations in scenario
three. Comment (1-3 sentences) on why this is the case. [ONPaper]

Well, we don’t know yet how to solve non-linear equations with MATLAB, but we can look for tricks
to convert it to a linear equation.

If you look at your equations it looks almost linear, it is a sum of simple terms, and although
variables are multiplied by each other, none of them are taken to any power. In fact, your equations
are (or should be) bi-linear. We can play a trick like this:

If you have an equation like this: bi-linear stuff + other linear stuff = more linear stuff

You can just take the bi-linear term and replace it with a new variable. So if your bi-linear term is
x1*x2, you can define a new variable z such that z = x1*x2 and replace it in the equation.

So now this is a linear equation and you can at least solve for z! To figure out x1 and x2, you might
be able to get it from somewhere else…

So for example, if you have

x1*x2 + 4*x2 = 7
3* x1*x2 + 2*x2 = 1

You can use z = x1*x2 to get the linear, and solvable set:

z + 4*x2 = 7
3* z + 2*x2 = 1

(Q22) [4 points] – Rewrite your balance showing the new definitions and linear system. [ONPaper]

(Q23) [4 points] – Use matlab to determine the value of T11 in °C to the nearest 0.1°C. [ONPaper]

(Q24) [4 points] – Report the value of F7 in kg/sec to the nearest 0.1 kg/sec. [ONPaper]

(Q25) [6 points] – Submit your code as before. [ONPaper]. [A2LDropBox]

Stick a fork in yourself, you’re done. Congrats on making it through!

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