Study hints Applied Transport Phenomena

I. Balance Equations
MT Kreutzer & HEA van den Akker
Edited by Volkert van Steijn

Note: throughout the study guides, reference will be mad to the Interna-
tional 2nd edition of William M. Deen’s Analysis of Transport Phenomena (to
the 1st edition).

It is strongly advised to first complete the exercises marked with a star (⋆)
before continuing to the next study guide. If you don’t manage to fin-
ish the study guide on time, you can use the remaining exercises as practice
material for the final exam.

1 ⋆ In the Delft BSc course of Transport Phenomena, the technique of

drawing up balances was introduced with the help of perfectly stirred
vessels:

d
dt = in − out + production

For a perfectly stirred vessel, this is a so-called macro balance: over the
whole vessel connecting
(a) in a transient situation, the change in average concentration to the
inflow, outflow and production rates, or
(b) in a steady-state situation, the outflow to the inflow and the produc-
tion inside the vessel.
2 ⋆ As soon as we are interested in more detailed information, such as spa-
tial concentration or temperature fields or velocity profiles, such a macro
balance is not very helpful. Then we should turn to micro balances over
thin slices or (cylindrical or spherical) shells at/for interior points (Deen,
2nd Ed., p. 25). In the BSc course, we restricted ourselves to simple
1-D cases resulting in rather simple differential equations which could be
solved easily analytically. The current course Applied Transport Phenom-
ena builds on this approach but deals with real-life 3-D cases of practical
interest.
3 ⋆ The distinction made (in the BSc course) between macro balances and
micro balances may suggest that they are not related. When we realise,

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 however, that a reactor (or any flow device) could be thought of as com-
prising numerous slices or shells, we easily understand that summing up
(integrating) all these micro balances and using the appropriate boundary
conditions will lead to a macro balance over reactor (or device). So there
is a firm relation between micro and macro balances.

4 ⋆ Applied Transport Phenomena will deal with approximation methods

for solving the typical 3-D differential equations describing the interplay
of flow and transport phenomena and chemical reactions. It is about
dealing with the physical and mathematical complexity of processes: find-
ing approximate solutions which represent the dominant features of the
processes, ignoring second-order effects. Rather than invoking physical
intuition, this course teaches rigorous methods for deriving such approx-
imations/simplifications. Typical questions are is mass or heat transport
rate limiting and how can we simplify the analysis such that we come
up with an approximate description of the process good enough to make
decisions on how to improve or accelerate the process.

5 ⋆ This first Study Guide (SG) serves to refresh your capability of draw-
ing proper mass, heat and momentum balances for a slice or shell, and
of solving the resulting differential equation(s). In the Delft BSc course
on Transport Phenomena, not that much attention has been paid to
cases where mass transport by diffusion and/or convection interacts with
chemical reactions. The refreshers will therefore mainly relate to diffu-
sion/convection/reaction examples which will be revisited later on in this
ATP course.
6 Deen uses a different terminology: in Chapter 2, he speaks of conserva-
tion equations for finite volumes and conservation equations for interior
points, and explains about the transition from one into the other. His
derivation explicitly makes use of multivariate calculus (Greens theorem,
Leibniz formula). We suggest to refresh your knowledge on these issues,
e.g. by watching MIT OpenCourseWare lectures: https://ocw.mit.edu/
courses/mathematics/18-02-multivariable-calculus-fall-2007/video-lectures/
lecture-22-greens-theorem/. Also http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/
18-02-multivariable-calculus-fall-2007/video-lectures/lecture-28-divergence-theorem/
is recommended. Such a refresher will be very useful with the view of the
next class on Friday.

7 Read through 2.1 (Ed.I: 2.1) and 2.2 (Ed.I: 2.2)

8 ⋆ The conservation equations for finite volume are an excursion from

what you have likely seen in your B.Sc., where (typically) we only dealt
with microbalances (Deen calls those ”conservation equations for points”).
Can you explain in words the difference between microbalances and these
finite-volume balances?

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 9 Can you describe in your own words each of the terms in eq. 2.2-8 (Ed.I:
2.2-8)?

10 ⋆ Can you give an example of a flux continuity or a symmetry condition

from your earlier transport phenomena classes?

11 Work through 2.3 (Ed.I: 2.3), skip over ”Alternative Conservation Equa-
tions”.
12 Do Deen exercise 2-3 (Ed.I: 2-2).

13 ⋆ Work through chapter 2.4-2.5 (Ed.I: 2.4-2.5). Make sure you under-
stand the sections ”Thermal equilibrium at an interface” and ”Convection
boundary condition,” as these boundary conditions will be often encoun-
tered during this course.

14 ⋆ Idem for chapter 2.6-2.7 (Ed.I: 2.6-2.7 ). It may be useful at this point
to make sure that you can find all the equations in your Data companion.
For instance, table 2.4 (Ed.I: 2.3) can be found in the companion. Do
you see significant differences in notation?

15 ⋆ Consider a stagnant layer of liquid adjacent to a wall at which a constant

concentration c0 of a particular species is maintained giving rise to mass
transfer by diffusion into this stagnant fluid. In the stagnant liquid, a
first-order chemical reaction takes place that consumes this species. Take
x as the coordinate normal to the wall, with x = 0 at the wall. Consider
a steady-state situation.
(a) ⋆ Make a sketch of the situation. ALWAYS DO THIS!
(b) ⋆ Consider a thin slice between x and x+dx and set up a mass
balance for the species of interest. Write down the resultant second-
order differential equation for c.
(c) ⋆ Solve this differential equation with the two appropriate boundary
conditions. Hint: use a suitable trial function for c.
(d) Non-dimensionalise your differential equation of sub-question b and
solve this non-dimensional differential equation with the appropriate
non-dimensional boundary conditions. The result should be the same
as in sub-question c.
An important advice: when writing down the differential equation(s) for
your case of interest, always write down immediately the pertinent initial
and/or boundary conditions. Turn this into a good habit.

16 ⋆ Now go through Example 3.2-1 (Ed.I: n.a.): essentially, this example

is identical to the above SG 15. You should make yourself familiar with
Deen’s notation and terminology. Make sure you understand Figure 3-2.
Note: Notice that Deen uses hyperbolic functions in this example:

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 (ex +e−x )
cosh(x) = 2
(ex −e−x )
sinh(x) = 2
sinh(x)
tanh(x) = cosh(x)

Can you see that c1 · ex + c2 · e−x can be rewritten into a a · cosh(x) + b ·

sinh(x)? It will be useful to refresh your knowledge on the integrals and
derivatives of these hyperbolic functions, as they will return often in the
book.
17 ⋆ Then study Example 3.2-2 (Ed.I: 2.8-4) in which the reaction is re-
versible. Make sure you understand Figure 3-4 (Ed.I: 2-9) and the ex-
pression for the thickness of the reaction zone. The concept of such a
reaction zone will be seen very often in the rest of the course, so pay much
attention to the pertinent paragraph.

18 ⋆After having carefully examined Example 3.2-2 (Ed.I: 2.8-4):

(a) ⋆ Close the book and see if you can work through the problem of
this example and find at least eq. 3.2-23 (Ed.I: 2.8-41) without
ever consulting the textbook. If you do need to consult the text,
start all over again with a clean sheet of paper, and repeat until you
can repeat the exercise without having to open your textbook. That
sounds harsh, but taking a quick peek to push yourself further when
you get stuck amounts to fooling yourself. At the exams, we see
many students fail, because in the exam setting they are unable to
do exercises that they thought they knew from studying at home.
(b) Continue the above exercise up to equation 3.2-24 (Ed.I: 2.8-42).
Hint: make use of data companion page 37/38 to solve the differential
equation and rewrite c1 · ex + c2 · e−x into hyperbolic functions.

19 ⋆ Study Example 3.2-5 (Ed.I: 2.8-1). Here, the Biot number Bi is intro-
duced. It is a very relevant number for the rest of the course. Make sure
you understand Fig. 3-7 (Ed.I: 2-5) and the role of the parameter Bi in
this plot.
20 Consider the effects of convection and diffusion in a tubular chemical reac-
tor in which a first-order chemical reaction consumes a particular species.
Assume there is plug flow without mass transfer to the pipe wall, to keep
the problem 1-D. Consider a steady state in which the concentration c of
the species of interest decreases from c0 at the entrance of the tubular
reactor (at x = 0) to cL at the exit of the reactor (x = L).
(a) Make a simple sketch of the situation.
(b) Consider a thin slice between x and x + dx and set up a mass balance
for the species of interest. Write down the resultant second-order
differential equation for c.

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 (c) Solve this differential equation with the two appropriate boundary
conditions.
21 ⋆ Consider two horizontal very long flat plates (width b) between which
a Newtonian liquid is flowing under the effect of a pressure gradient. The
laminar 1-D flow is in the positive x-direction (along the plates) and the
coordinate normal to the plates is y. The lower plate (y = 0) also moves in
the positive x-direction, with a velocity U , while the upper plate (y = δ)
is at rest. Consider a steady state.
(a) ⋆ Make a sketch of the situation.
(b) ⋆ Consider a thin slice (control volume) with sizes dx and dy some-
where in the flow between the two plates. Set up a force balance over
this control volume comprising the effects of pressure p and shear
stress τyx . Derive the differential equation for τyx .
(c) ⋆ Substitute the constitutive relation for a Newtonian fluid to elim-
inate τyx and to find the differential equation for the velocity vx .
Which are your boundary conditions? Introduce the Greek capital
Γ for (dp/dx), where (dp/dx) = ∆p/L which is the driving force for
flow due to the imposed ∆p = pupstream − pdownstream .
(d) Solve the differential equation to find vx (y).

22 Familiarize yourself with the 3-D versions of the Navier-Stokes equation of

motion and the general transport equations for species and heat: see e.g.
the Data Companion pp. 55-61. We will NOT ask you to derive these 3-D
versions: neither in Cartesian coordinates, nor in cylindrical or spherical
coordinates. Make sure you do recognise the convective terms and the
diffusive (molecular transport) terms. Check that the earlier cases in this
SG are specific cases which can be obtained by skipping certain (which?)
terms.
23 ⋆ Do Deen exercise 3-2 (Ed.I: 2.10) which essentially is similar to Prob-
lem 2.10 in the 1st edition, but with (slightly) modified wording and with
quantitative data. Start from the general species transport equation in
spherical coordinates (from the Data Companion) which then is simplified
to cover the case of interest (e.g., no flow) by dropping quite a few terms.

24 Do Deen exercise 3-1 (Ed.I: 2-9).

25 Now study example 3.2-6 (Ed.I: 2.8-5). Then close your book and see
if you can work through the example without ever consulting the text.
If you do need to consult the text, start over again with a clean sheet of
paper and repeat until you can repeat the exercise without having to open
the book. That sounds harsh, but taking a quick peek to push yourself
further when you get stuck amounts to fooling yourself. At the exams, we
see many students fail, because in the exam setting they are unable to do
exercises that they thought they knew from studying at home.