TRANSIENT PROCESSES

INTRODUCTION In Chapter 3 we analyzed processes by developing models based on fundamental laws, such as conservation principles. We restricted our analyses to systems at steady-state, namely where none of the variables changed with time. This simplified the mathematical modeling since we dealt only with algebraic equations; such models, as we saw, are extremely useful for analyzing steady-state systems. Many chemical processes, however, do not operate at steady state. A chemical reaction performed one batch at a time, such as the experiments you have done in your secondary school and first year chemistry classes, is an example of unsteady process. Thus we need design tools for processes that are inherently time-dependent. Furthermore, even when designing a steady-state process, time-dependent problems occur: for example, how does one write the instructions for turning on one of the elegant designs we accomplished in Chapter 2? A member of the faculty at a leading US University tells an interesting anecdote. When he was a design engineer employed at a major oil company he designed a continuous reactor that was constructed but could not be started. Furthermore, this happened twice! The hard-earned lesson is that a thorough understanding of transients is required to start, stop, and control a continuous process. A non-steady process, or transient process, is one where at least one of the process variables changes with time. Modeling a transient process usually involves a differential equation. Since your calculus course has now prepared you to deal with simple differential equations, you may now appreciate the engineering aspects of transient phenomena. For the last chapter of this book we are going to apply the three methods presented in the previous chapters: mathematical modeling, graphical analysis, and dimensional analysis. We will begin with mathematical modeling based upon fundamental and constitutive laws: the fundamental laws are chiefly conservation of mass, energy, and momentum. Momentum is a vector quantity and the mathematics that describe it are largely beyond the scope of this text. Mass and energy are scalar quantities (at least in the absence of special and general relativistic effects) and are the fundamental dependent variables around which we build our conservation laws. For the moment we will separate problems in which mass is conserved from problems in which energy is conserved: proper modeling of energy conservation requires engineering thermodynamics. In most real situations models for conservation of both mass and energy are developed simultaneously, leading to more complicated mathematics, which we will defer to later courses. The fundamentals used in the construction of our transient mathematical models derives from 19th century physics, such as the conservation of mass and energy. The antiquity of the physics may lead you to suspect that our task of analysis is trivial. If our goal was an expression for the mass or energy, then our task may indeed be easy. But more often we seek an expression for a measurable quantity that

characterizes the state of the system. Examples of such characterizing variables are the height of a fluid in a tank, or the temperature in a reactor, or the pressure drop across a porous bed of catalyst. The difficulty in analyzing a system comes when we must express a fundamental variable - such as mass or energy - in terms of a characterizing variable. Thermodynamics provides succinct and pedagogically tractable relations between physical observables, such as temperature and pressure, and fundamental quantities, such as energy and mass. And as before, the choice of system boundaries can greatly simplify an analysis. Similarly, for transient processes we will find that the appropriate choice of time boundaries can greatly simplify an analysis. We begin with a formal statement of a conservation principle: The rate of change of a quantity within a system equals the rate at which the quantity enters that system plus the rate at which that quantity is generated within the system minus the rate at which that quantity leaves the system and minus the rate at which that quantity is consumed within the system. A convenient distillation of the above statement is The rate of accumulation equals input plus generation minus output minus consumption. The previous chapters on mass conservation dealt with systems at steady-state, namely when accumulation equaled zero. We now generalize mass conservation to include accumulation; we will discuss the generation and consumption terms later in the chapter. 6-1 THE BASICS - A SURGE TANK A surge tank is a simple system rich in transient phenomena and important engineering lessons. In its typical application, a surge tank may be used to average transients in a flow stream; the flow into the tank may surge and ebb, but the flow out of the tank will be stable. We will use the production of citric acid as a case study in the use of surge tanks, and in the suppression of transients in process design. The process flowsheet below shows the overall design for citric acid production; a fermentor is followed by an absorber that absorbs citric acid from the aqueous phase into the organic phase, thereby separating the product from the reaction mixture.

water molasses Aspergillus niger reactor (fermentor) molasses citric acid

water phase water citric acid molasses Aspergillus niger by-products absorber

2-butanol

2-butanol citric acid

FIGURE 6-1 Citric acid produced in a fermentor and extracted in an absorber.

The process is more complicated than shown in Figure 6-1, because the flow out of the fermentor is incompatible with the flow required by the absorber. The fermentor produces citric acid in batches,

whereas the absorber operates best as a continuous device. A surge tank allows us to connect batch fermentation with continuous separations, as shown below.

water phase reactor (fermentor) molasses citric acid surge tank water citric acid molasses Aspergillus niger by-products

2-butanol

absorber 2-butanol citric acid

FIGURE 6-2 Batch fermentation takes place while the surge tank provides a steady flow to the absorber.

Upon completion of the fermentation process, the fermentor will empty its contents into the surge tank. The fermentor will then be refilled, and the process begins again.

water phase reactor (fermentor) molasses citric acid surge tank water citric acid molasses Aspergillus niger by-products

2-butanol

absorber 2-butanol citric acid

FIGURE 6-3 Fermentor empties its contents into the surge tank.

Figure 6-4 shows three graphs depicting the stream flowrates out of the fermentor and into the surge tank, the stream flowrates into the absorber, and the level of fluid in the surge tank. Fermentation occurs during time A to time B; there is no flow out of the fermentor and the fluid level in the surge tank falls. The fermentor is emptied into the surge tank during time B to time C, and the level in the surge tank rises. The process repeats, refilling the fermentor and conducting fermentation from time C to time D, and draining the fermentor from D to E. The surge tank accepts the large transients arising from batch production and provides the steady flow required by the absorber. Of course, the surge tank must never overflow or empty completely. We also see the timescales of the transients that the surge tank must suppress. We now have a design problem: what specifications does the surge tank need to perform this function?

flow rate out of fermentor

0 A B C D E F G time

flow rate into absorber

0 time fluid level in surge tank

0 A B C D E F G time
FIGURE 6-4 Stream flowrates out of the fermentor and into the surge tank (top), the stream flowrates into the absorber (middle), and fluid level in the surge tank (bottom).

Lets consider just the surge tank, and apply some of the mathematical analysis tools we developed in Chapter 3. Consider a surge tank with volumetric flow rate in Qin and volumetric flow rate out Qout as shown in figure 6-5.

Qin

density =

fluid height = h

Qout
FIGURE 6-5 A surge tank.

Let us first analyze the simple scenario in which Qin and Qout are pumped at constant, but not necessarily equal, rates. Further assume that the cross-sectional area of the surge tank, Atank, is constant along the height of the tank. Let us apply conservation principles to this surge tank to model its behavior.

Specifically, we wish to model the height of the fluid as a function of time. Is there a fundamental law that concerns the fluid height, such as conservation of height? No. What is conserved? Mass is conserved. We must begin with mass and express in terms of height. To introduce the dimension of length, one can express the total mass in terms of the density, , and the volume, V.

Equation (6.2) requires uniform density throughout the tank, which is valid for many liquid systems; we could always add a stirring mechanism if we were concerned about density gradients. Because the crosssectional area of the tank is constant, the volume of the fluid is the product of the fluid height, h, and Atank.

We can use eqn (6.4) to translate an expression in terms of mass into an expression in terms of height. We begin with the conservation of mass rate of accumulation equals input plus generation minus output minus consumption - and translate into mathematics. What are the appropriate system boundaries? Answer: the tank. We associate the generation and consumption terms of our formal conservation statement with the reactants and products of chemical reactions. In the absence of any reactions, therefore, both the generation and consumption terms are zero. Like the total mass in the system, we express the mass flow rates Fin and Fout in terms of density and volumetric flow rates:

Similarly we have

Fout = out Qout

The accumulation is the rate at which total mass in the system changes with time,

(6.7)

rate of accumulation=
which can be rewritten in terms of h using eqn (6.4),

dM tank dt

(6.8)

(6.9) We can combine the terms in the conservation statement (6.10) and arrive at the equation (6.11)

We assume further that the density of the fluid entering the tank is equal to that exiting the tank, and equal to that in the tank, (6.12) which simplifies eqn (6.11) to (6.13) We now solve eqn (6.13). Its solution is simplified by the condition that Qin and Qout are constant, which allows one to move all variables dependent on h to one side of the equation and all variables dependent on t to the other side. (The constants may reside on either side.) (6.14) The differential eqn (6.13) is thus separable and as such is easily solved by integration.

Combining the constants and solving for h yields (6.17) This formula for the fluid height as a function of time contains an unknown constant; can we eliminate this from our analysis? Lets exploit the fact that our analysis tells us that height is linearly proportional to time; eqn (6.17) defines a straight line for which we know the slope, but not the intercept. To uniquely determine the line on a plot of h versus t we must specify one point on the line, and thus need to know h at a given time to determine the constant in eqn (6.17). This datum is an example of an initial condition. The solution of differential equations containing a derivative with respect to time may be solved completely only when an initial condition is specified. Similarly, differential equations that contain a derivative with respect to position may be solved completely only if the conditions of the system are specified at a geometric boundary, hence the term boundary condition. For the surge tank we will specify a condition at a specific time; we arbitrarily designate time such that at t = 0 the height of the fluid in the tank h is equal to h0. Substituting into eqn (6.17) we have

thus

(6.20) A more efficient juncture to introduce the boundary condition(s) is before integration, eqn (6.15).

We create two definite integrals using the boundary condition h = h0 at t = 0 for the lower limits of each integral, (6.21)

and the unknown h at some later t as the upper limits, (6.22) Eqn (6.22) represents an evolution from a certain height h0 at time = 0 to a different h at a later time. Paying careful attention to the limits of integration we have (6.23) which yields the same result as eqn (6.20). Thus the height of fluid in the tank increases linearly with time if Qin Qout > 0, decreases linearly with time if Qin Qout < 0, and remains constant if Qin = Qout. These three mathematical conditions make intuitive sense: when Qin Qout > 0 the rate of accumulation is positive and the surge tank fills up with fluid. When Qin Qout < 0 the rate of accumulation is negative and the surge tank empties. The situation when Qin = Qout is exactly at steady state, and the fluid height in the surge tank remains constant. A surge tank drained by gravity is a slightly more challenging problem. The exit flow rate of fluid through an orifice at the bottom is a function of the height of water in the tank, as shown in figure 6-6.

Qin = 0

density =

fluid height = h

Qout= f(h)
FIGURE 6-6 A draining tank.

Qualitatively, one expects the flow rate to decrease as the fluid height decreases. Thus a model for a draining surge tank will include the relationship between the height of fluid in the tank and the flow rate through the hole in the bottom. Dimensional analysis may be used to obtain the relationship between h and Qout. techniques presented in Chapter 5, we first list the relevant parameters. Table 6-1 THE PARAMETERS OF A DRAINING TANK parameter fluid height volumetric flow rate orifice cross-sectional area gravity variable h Qout Aorifice g dimensions L L3/T L2 L/T2 Using the

Upon arranging the exponents of the three key dimensions (mass, time, length) into algebraic equations and choosing the height h and Qout as core variables we derive two dimensionless groups: and Thus we know there exists a functional relationship of the form (6.24)

One then goes to the laboratory and measures Qout as a function of Aorifice and h. A plot of the data reveals a simple relationship (6.27) This is the so-called orifice equation, a constitutive law that relates h and Qout. Using this expression in our mass balance equation, along with the fact that Qin = 0, we have

Although this differential equation is more complicated than eqn (6.13), it is still separable. separation of variables we have

Upon

(6.29) and we can integrate both sides (6.30) Eqn (6.30) uses the same boundary conditions as before. We have moved the constants out of the integral over time. Evaluating the integrals obtains

Eqn (6.32) may be generalized using dimensional consistency and scaling. Rather than pose a problem specific to this tank, one may pose a problem applicable to all draining tanks. How does one eliminate the information specific to this problem to solve a more general problem? As we discussed in Chapter 5, systems may be rendered dynamically similar by converting to a dimensionless form. A step toward solving the more general problem is to recognize that the ratio dimensionless and represents the fraction of water remaining in the tank. We define is

(6.33) and it follows that

We also introduce a dimensionless time. This is not as straightforward as the dimensionless height because no other variable has dimensions of time. The gravitational constant g has dimensions of L/T2, and thus (h /g) has dimensions of time. We thus define
0

(6.36) and it follows that

Finally we define a dimensionless ratio of the relative cross-sectional areas of the tank and the orifice: (6.39) Returning to our mass balance expression, (6.28) we substitute the dimensionless variables from eqns. (6.33), (6.35), (6.38), and (6.39) to yield (6.40)

which simplifies to (6.41) Again we separate variables, which gives (6.42) We now integrate, and apply the boundary condition h = h0 at t = 0, which in dimensionless quantities corresponds to x = 1 at = 0. (6.43) Solving the integrals and substituting the limits gives

(6.44) which can be rearranged to obtain (6.45) Eqn (6.45) predicts that the fraction of water remaining in any similar tank will vary as (time)2. Notice also that when posed in a dimensionless form the equation is simpler and thus is easier to manipulate mathematically. We return now to the design problem illustrated in Figure 6-4. Should we choose a gravity draining surge tank before our absorber, then the flow rate into the absorber will not be constant: eqn 6-27 tells us it will vary as the square root of fluid level. Thus we surmise that use of a pump, or other controlling device, after the surge tank is necessary to insure constant absorber input. Any mathematical model is subject to the limits imposed by its founding assumptions. For example, when we invoked the orifice equation we implicitly assumed that the fluid height in the tank preserved the physics of the draining process. When the tank is nearly empty the physics will be different - a whirlpool of air will form in the outlet, for example. Thus at long times the orifice equation, and subsequently eqn (6.45), will not be valid. Similarly, a tank with a closed top, a tank with variable cross-sectional area (such as a funnel), or density gradients in the fluid, require different mathematical models. This example of the draining tank was adapted from the textbook by Russell and Denn (1972). You are encouraged to study the other analyses of dynamic systems in their textbook.