MAE 101C (Spring 2020) – Midterm Exam #1 ( 80 minutes )

Problem 1 (20 points)

A 4-m4-m wall is made of three layers, as shown here. The inner layer is wood (k = 0.15 W/m-K) with a
thickness of 5 cm. The outer layer is brick (k = 0.25 W/m-K) with a thickness of 15 cm. The composite middle
layer is 10-cm thick. It is filled with an insulating material (k = 0.05 W/m-K) along with four plastic separators (k =
0.4 W/m-K). Each separator has a height of 25 cm. The distance between the separators is 1 m. On a cold night,
the air is at −30 C with a convective heat transfer coefficient of 3.0 W/m2-K and negligible radiative heat transfer.
a. Draw the thermal circuit for the wall. The convective and radiative effects inside the room are negligible.
b. Calculate the overall heat transfer coefficient, U.
c. Find the heating rate needed for the room in order to maintain the inside temperature at 25°C.

Problem 1 Problem 2

Problem 2 (15 points)

A plate on a satellite is facing the Sun on one side. The surface that is exposed to the Sun is painted black. The
solar rays make a 60 angle with a line normal to the plate. The other surface of the plate is gray with absorptance
of 0.68. The solar radiation has a flux of G = 1367 W/m2. The plate thickness is negligible. Space is assumed
black at 0 C. Calculate the plate temperature (in C).
Problem 3 (15 points)
A 35-m pipeline carrying high pressure steam is located in a boiler room. The temperature inside the building is
25°C. The outer surface of the pipeline is at a temperature of 160 °C due to the steam flow inside the pipe. The
pipeline has an outer diameter of 13 cm with a surface emissivity of  = 0.87. Assume a convective heat transfer
coefficient of 7.5 W/m2-K for the room air.
a. Draw the thermal circuit for this system.
b. Calculate the rate of heat loss from the steam pipeline.
c. If the steam generator has an efficiency of 85% and the cost associated with this process is $0.01 per MJ,
calculate the annual cost of energy due to this heat loss to the surroundings.

Problem 4 (15 points)

A 10-cm cube of carbon steel with thermal conductivity of 64 W/m-K is immersed in a liquid with convective heat
transfer coefficient of 3 W/m2-K. Carbon steel has ρ = 7830 kg/m3 and c = 434 J/kg-K.
a. Can you treat this problem as a Lumped Thermal Capacity model? Explain.
b. Assume that the cube is initially at 280°C and immersed at t = 0 in the liquid at 18 °C. In this situation, the
convective heat transfer coefficient of the liquid is h = (3 + 510−6 t)−1. If radiation is negligible and there is no
heat generation inside the cube, calculate the cube temperature after 2 hours.

Problem 5 (10 points)

A closed system is receiving heat from outside in the amount of t Joules, where  is a constant and t is the time.
Also, heat is generated inside the system at a rate of  Watts, where  is a constant. Obtain an expression for the
system temperature as a function of time.
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