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THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

BACHELOR OF ENGINEERING: LEVEL ( I ) EXAMINATION

DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

CIVL1012 Environmental Engineering and Fluid Mechanics

DATE: May17,2011(Tuesday) TIME: 9:30am- !2:30pm (3 hours)

Sections A and B carry 50 marks each. Use a separate answer book for each section.

Use of Electronic Calculators:

Only approved calculators as announced by the Examinations Secretary can be used in this
examination. It is candidates' responsibility to ensue that their calculator operates
satisfactorily, and candidates must record the name and type of the calculator used on the front
page of the examination script.

Section A (Environmental Engineering)

Answer ANY (and NO more than) 25 out of the following 30 questions.

Each question carries two marks.

1. Which is a unit ofU.S. Customary System? (a) oc; (b) W; (c) milhr; (d) kg.
2. According to Carnot Engine Theory, what will be the maximum efficiency of converting
an 800C steam to 150C by heat engine? (a) 61 %; (b) 81 %; (c) 47%; (d) 71%.
3. Comparing to the standard enthalpies of liquid water and water vapour, which of the
following statements is wrong? (a) The enthalpy of liquid water is higher; (b) The
enthalpy of water vapor is used to design the condensing furnace; (c) The enthalpy of
liquid water can be used to calculate the higher heating value (HHV); (d) The enthalpy of
water vapor can give net heat of combustion.
4. For liquids, which of the following properties is correct? (a) Specific heat at constant
pressure is larger than at constant volume; (b) Work will be done when temperature is
increased; (c) Specific heat at constant volume is larger than at constant pressure; (d)
Internal energy is equal to enthal py.
5. Which of the following systems is the most suitable to be described by a plug flow
reactor (PFR)? (a) Pour milk in a cup of coffee; (b) Add a tea spoon of salt into a boiling
soup; (c) Factory discharges pollutants into groundwater; (d) Disinfect drinking water by
ozone.
6. Which one is a Lewis acid? (a) Ca2+; (b) NH3; (c) soi-; (d) HCOO-.
7. Which one is not a typical nuclear fission fragment? (a) Iodine-131; (b) Cesium-137; (c)
Strontium-90; (d) Uranium-236.
8. What type of data will be the best indicator of poverty in a country? (a) Crude death rate;
(b) Replacement level fertility; (c) Infant mortality rate; (d) Total fertility rate.
9. A stable population is: (a) unchanging in size and not maintaining age structure; (b)
changing in size but maintaining the age structure; (c) unchanging in size but maintaining
the total fertility rate; (d) a stationary population.
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10. For the equilibrium of pure water with atmospheric carbon dioxide (C02(g)), which of the
followings is true? (a) [CO/'] > [HC0 3']; (b) pH: 4.6 and [H+] > [OH-]; (c) pH: 6.1
and [W] < [HCoJ]; (d) [C0 32'] < [W].
11. Which property is NOT a main concern of hazardous waste? (a) lgnitability; (b)
Solubility; (c) Corrosivity; (d) Reactivity.
12. Indicate which element underlined has gone through a reduction process? (a) NaCN
C02; (b) Cr,(S04)J Cr03; (c) NaCNO lli; (d) None of the above.
13. The use of incineration for hazardous waste is not causing a serious concern on the
emission of(a) C02; (b) volatile organics; (c) volatile metals; (d) toxic compounds.
14. Which air pollutant doesn't mainly come from the mobile sources? (a) CO; (b) NOx; (c)
S02; (d) volatile organics.
15. The saturation level of carboxyhemoglobin (o/oCOHb) in blood is directly influenced by
(a) exposure time; (b) type of CO source; (c) 02 concentration; (d) CO generation rate.
16. Which of the following sources of nutrients (primarily nitrogen and phosphorus) is a
point source pollution: (a) urban stormwater discharge, (b) agricultural runoff, (c)
municipal sewage, or (d) soil erosion.
17. Which one of the following descriptions is a false description of dissolved oxygen (DO)
which is one of the most critical parameters for water quality: its solubility in water
decreases with (a) the increase of pH, (b) increase of altitude, (c) increase of temperature,
or (d) increase of salinity.
18. The effluent quality of a conventional secondary wastewater treatment plant has been
determined in the laboratory as follows: (a) BODs = 25 mg!L, (b) COD= 12 mg!L, (c)
suspended solids= 30 mg!L, and (d) ammonia nitrogen= 2 mg!L. Which value is most
probably incorrect?
19. For a wastewater having a BOD 5 of 100 mg!L and an UBOD of 150 mg!L, what is its
1
first order reaction rate constant (in base of natural log): (a) 0.14 day" 1, (b) 0.17 day , (c)
1
0.22 day" 1, or (d) 0.25 day"
20. A litre of Coca Cola contains 110 grams of sugar, which has the chemical formula of
C 12 H 22 0 11. Based on this chemical formula, what is the approximate COD concentration
of Coca Cola: (a) 44 g!L, (b) 61 g!L, (c) 125 g!L, or (d) 210 g!L (Atomic weights are: C
12, H 1, and 0 16).
21. A wastewater is discharged into a river and mixed immediately with the river water. The
river is rather flat and straight with an average flow velocity of 0.1 m/sec. Just
downstream from the discharge point, the river has an ultimate BOD of 12 mg!L and a
DO of 6 mg!L. The BOD degradation reaction rate (mg 0 2/L-d) can be described by
dX!Jt = -0.25X (where X= BOD). If re-aeration and other processes are neglected, from
the discharge point the DO of the river would decrease to zero after about (a) 5988 m, (b)
11977 m, (c) 23,955 m, or (d) 47910 m.
22. In seawater, nitrogen is usually the limiting nutrient for the growth of algae, with 0.3
mg!L considered as the critical concentration for eutrophication. At what approximate
concentration would phosphorus become the limiting nutrient: (a) 30 mg!L, (b) 0.03
mg!L, (c) 0.3 mg!L, or (d) 3.0 mg!L.
23. Nitrogen in wastewater may be present in the form of organic-nitrogen or inorganic-
nitrogen. Ammonium is one of the inorganic-nitrogen forms. Which of the following
statements regarding ammonium is false? (a) it is more toxic than ammonia to aquatic
life, (b) it consumes oxygen, (c) it can be stripped from wastewater by increasing the pH,
or (d) it may be removed by using biological method.
24. In water treatment plant, which of the following is in the right order (a) sedimentation,
coagulation, filtration, disinfection, (b) coagulation, filtration, disinfection,
sedimentation, (c) sedimentation, coagulation, disinfection, filtration, or (d) coagulation,
sedimentation, filtration, disinfection?
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25. Calcium (Ca2 +) and magnesium (Mg2+) are among the most common cations found in
groundwater. Which of the following waters has the highest degree of hardness as
expressed by CaC03 equivalent? Water (a) containing 200 mg!l of Ca2+, or (b)
containing 100 mg!l ofCa2+ and 100 mg!l ofMg2+, or (c) containing 70 mg!l of Ca2+ and
130 mg!l of Mg2+, or (d) containing 150 mg!l of Ca2+ and 50 mg!l of Mg2+. (Atomic
weights are: Ca 40; Mg 24.3)
26. If the designed overflow rate of a sedimentation tank is doubled, and HRT is shortened
by 50%, then the area (At) of the tank and the effective height (h) of the tank will: a) At:
no change, h : doubled; b) At: reduced by 50%, h : no change; c) At: no change, h :
reduced by 50%; d) At: reduced by 50%, h : reduced by 50%.
27. In wastewater treatment plant, which of the following is in the right order (a)
disinfection, screening, primary settling, activated sludge process, secondary settling; (b)
screening, primary settling, activated sludge process, secondary settling, disinfection; (c)
screening, activated sludge process, primary settling, secondary settling, disinfection; or
(d) primary settling, activated sludge process, screening?
28. Activated sludge is a (a) physical treatment process, (b) biological treatment process, (c)
chemical treatment process, or (d) sludge disposal process.
29. Which process listed below could be used to remove/kill virus from drinking water: (a)
coagulation/flocculation, (b) microfiltration, (c) sedimentation, (d) ozonation.
30. Which one of the following descriptions for a secondary sewage treatment plant is false:
(a) suspended solids in the sewage account for over 113 of total BOD, (b) solids removed
from the primary settling tank are mostly biomass, (c) BOD removal efficiency is about
90%, or (d) COD removal efficiency is about 80%.

Section B (Fluid Mechanics)

Answer TWO questions out of THREE.

Each question carries 25 marks.

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Density of air= 1.2 kg!m
Density of water = 1000 kg/m3
Kinematic viscosity of water= 10-6 m 2/s
Acceleration due to gravity, g = 9.81 rn!s 2

I. Give short/numerical answers to the followings:

(a) Name two instruments for the measurement of discharge of water through a circular
pipe which use different principles. Briefly describe the measuring principles.
(5 marks)

(b) A I :300 scale building model is tested in the wind tunnel at a speed of 11 rnls. If
the measured force on the building model is 2.6 N, what will be the full-scale force
on the prototype building at a full-scale wind speed of 48 rn!s? (5 marks)

(c) The flow induced by a typhoon can be mode led as a free vortex with a core or "eye"
of a forced vortex flow. If the eye of the typhoon has a radius of 0.8 km and the
maximum wind speed at the edge of the eye is 120 rn!s, what is the wind speed at 4
km from the centre of the typhoon. (5 marks)

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 (d) Water is pumped through a 15-km long horizontal pipe at a discharge of0.12 m 3/s.
The diameter of the pipe is 0.6 m and the friction factor is 0.022. What is the
required pumping power? (5 marks)

(e) An ideal flow is described by the stream function, l!'(x,y) = y-x 2 Compute the
velocity at point A at (x, y) = ( -2, 4). What is the smallest possible flow speed over
the flow field? (5 marks)

Of// V=--
of//
U=-
i)y' Ox

2. (a) Why are distorted scale models usually used to study river flows. (5 marks)

(b) A distorted river model is used to simulate flood discharge by a long river running
through a river basin. The horizontal scale of the model is I: 150 and the vertical
scale of I :25. A particular flood is found to be discharged by the model river in 25
minutes. What will be the corresponding prototype flood discharge time. (6 marks)

(c) Flow velocities are measured at a section of the river model in (b). The section is
roughly rectangular with width 0.12 m and depth 0.06 m. The (area-averaged)
mean velocity at this river section is measured to be 0.8 rn/s. What will be the
corresponding full-scale discharge of the prototype river? Compute the model and
prototype Reynolds numbers at this river section using the river depth. (6 marks)

(d) The Bernoulli Equation is written below in the pressure unit. Rewrite the equation
in a non-dimensional form using a characteristic length (L) and a characteristic
velocity (V) of the flow. Explain the meanings of the each term in the resulting
non-dimensional equation. Identify the relevant flow number in each term. Explain
why the Reynolds number is not involved. (8 marks)

y
p + pu + pgz = constant
2

3. (a) Water flows under gravity from Reservoir A to Reservoir B first through a 900-m
long pipe (pipe a) and then through two pipes (b and c) in parallel. The lengths,
diameters and friction factors of the pipes are listed in the table. The water level in
Reservoir A is always higher than that in Reservoir B by 20 m. Calculate the total
discharge between the reservoirs. Neglect all minor losses.
(15 marks)

(b) Which of pipes b and c will carry a larger discharge? (3 marks)

(c) What will be the total discharge (Q) when the water level difference (H) between the
two reservoirs changes from 20 m to 40 (m)? (4 marks)

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(d) Is there a simple relation between Q and H? If yes, what is the simple relation? (3
marks)

pipe a

Pipe Length, m Diameter, mm friction factor

a 900 200 0.020
b 1200 100 0.032
c 1200 150 0.024

[ Head loss equation: h = fl u2 l

I d 2g

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