341 Assignment The natural gas supplied to us is a mixture of methane, ethane, propane, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and about

5% by weight content of water vapor. Methane 80% weight Ethane 9% weight Propane 3% weight CO2 2% weight N2 1% weight H2O 5% weight
Mole Fractions

Assuming 1kg of Methane = 0.8 Kg = 0.09 Kg = 0.03 Kg 2 = 0.02 Kg 2 = 0.01 Kg 2 = 0.05 Kg

Specific heat Our first assumption is to treat the natural gas as a mixture of water vapour and dry gas since the composition of dry gas generally remains constant but there are fluctuations in water vapour due to condensation. The temprature in our airconditioning model ranges from about -20 degrees celcius to 50 degrees. We can assume constant for the dry gas for these tempratures as our model falls between the temprature range for the constituant gasses. To work out the for the natural gas we took the sum of the mass fractions of the constiuant gasses and mulitiplied it with their corresponding values from table found in table A-2.

( ) ( )

Specific humidity and relative humidity The amount of water vapor in the natural gas can be found in many ways. The modeling approach we use specifies directly the quantity of water vapor contained in the natural gas mixture. The specific humidity can be expressed as: ( ) [Kg water vapor/Kg gas] The ratio of the amount of moisture the natural gas holds at the specified temperature relative to the maximum moisture the natural gas can hold at that temperature is given by the relative humidity: OR We can combine these equations to get the specific humidity in terms of relative humidity and that yields: Where Pg is the saturated temperature of the water vapor at a specified temperature. And P is constant at 1.5bar

Enthalpy To make calculations easier water vapor is also assumed to be an ideal gas. However one limitation for this approach is that we sacrifice some accuracy. At pressures below the critical pressure of water vapor the relative error is about (0.2%). Since we assume that water vapor is an ideal, the enthalpy of water vapor is a function of temperature only. The enthalpy of water vapor at 0 degrees is 2500.9 kJ/kg and the value for the range (-10 to 50 ) can be taken as 1.82 KJ/kg k. Hence the enthalpy for water vapor is: The enthalpy of the dry gas can be given by the eq: (KJ/Kg) The total enthalpy of the natural gas is the sum of the enthalpies of dry gas and water vapor. Given by the equation: or ( Since we have obtained these equations they were entered into matlab and hence allowed us to derive the psychrometric chart. Sample calculations (psychrometric chart) P = 150Kpa or 1.5 Bar
T = 20 Degrees C Pg = Psat@20 Degrees = 2.3392 Kpa
2 2 2 2

h h h h

H2 O Dry Gas

H H H

,H

Dehumidification process Another assumption that we can make is that this process involves no kinetic or potential energy interactions. We can model this dehumidification process as steady flow process thus the mass balance relation for dry gas and natural gas can be expressed as: Mass balance for dry air: (kg/s) Mass balance for water: Energy balance equation :

Calculation = 0.053 kg H20/kg dry gas T1 = 42 P1 = 1.5 Bar

Dehumidifier

= 0.0011 kg H20/Kg dry gas T2 = - 15.9 P2 = 1.5 Bar

Assumptions Natural gas is a mixture of water vapour and dry gas Constant for the dry gas Water vapor is also assumed to be an ideal gas Kinetic or potential energy interactions are negligible Steady flow process and thus the mass flow rate of the dry gas remains constant during the entire process Properties The properties for the each are determined from the psychrometric chart = 0.053 kg H20/kg dry gas = Analysis Dry gas mass balance: 2 Water mass balance: 2 dy 2 OR 2 Energy balance h Q h Q h h2 h *Dividing by * Q h h2 h q q h h2

2
2

0.0011 kg H20/Kg dry gas

h (Kj/kg)

h h2 2 h

Discussion of results There are many limitations to the approach used to derive some of the properties that were used for the final calculations. Firstly considering the constant specific heats for the constituent gases we had to take the at 27 rather than 42 , and also assume that the specific heats remain constant throughout the whole process. This in turn will affect the values however the margin will only be small. Similar inadequacy was seen during the interpretation of the enthalpy where we considered the formulae h T to be true for temperatures below -10 when this equation is only accurate for the temperature range between -10 to 50 , hence obtaining a small error. However this assumption simplified our calculations. To derive our phychrometric chart we used matlab. We started off by specifying a range of temperature and relative humidity parameters. Followed by that we defined our equations that had derived and generated matrices from that. The next step was to develop contour plots that link the results together forming the psychrometric chart. Using matlab allowed for higher accuracy of results and hence provided a chart that was easy to analyze. Analysis of the dehumidification process was illustrated on the psychrometric chart. The initial temperature at the inlet is specified to be 42 with the specific humidity, = 0.053 kg H20/kg dry gas and = and As natural gas at stage one passes through the coils the temperature decreases and the relative humidity increases at constant specific humidity. The cooling is long enough and the natural gas reaches its dew point temperature. The condensation of part of the moisture in the natural gas occurs at further cooling. Natural gas, at this stage remains saturated throughout the entire condensation process and follows the 100% humidity curve till it reaches stage 2 (-15.9 . The water vapor is removed from the cooling section through another channel and is assumed to be leaving at T2 . The gas at state 2 might be at the right specific humidity however the temperature is significantly low at .