Abstract Introduction In the world there are many cycles that use different configurations to produce electricity or other

products. Knowing the efficiencies of each process is important to get the most use out of the energy put into the cycle. It also heps to show where improvements can be made to increase the efficiencies. One of the major considerations is the type of fuel used to run the cycle because cost of fuel will drive the end cost to the customer. The best fuel to use would be one with a high heating value, low cost, and that is easy to obtain in the area of production. In this lab a combination of cycles will be analyzed. These cycles include a chemical reaction, a diesel engine, a generator, and electricity to heat that will heat a tank of water. This combination of cycles will be analyzed to see the effect of efficiencies on energy transfer and the use to the end user or function. Methods The tank of water was heated through a process consisting of an engine, generator, and heating elements. The water was measured to obtain the volume of water to be heated. Inside the tank there were six heating elements attached directly to a three phase generator. There were two elements connected to each phase. A thermal couple was used to measure the temperature of the water while it was stirred to ensure a constant temperature throughout. The engine was then allowed to warm up. Once warmed up the fuel source was switched to a pitcher of fuel resting on a scale to measure the amount of fuel used. Measurements were taken every five minutes for sixty seconds at a time. The temperature, voltage, current, and rate of fuel consumption were measured. These results are seen in table 1.
Table 1: Summary of measurements

With the measured values in table 1 and with given valves of 1800 rpm, 90% generator efficiency, 98% fuel efficiency, and a heating value of 43,200 kJ/kg for diesel fuel. The process of heating the water can be analyzed. The efficiencies of the motor and energy transfer to the water can be calculated. Also from the rpm the torque of the engine can be obtained and cost comparisons can be made. Discussion and Results Using the rpm of the motor the torque can be calculated by using equation 1. =p/(rpm*(260)) (1) Where p is power in watts. The power from the engine was calculated to be 27,497 watts. This comes from the output read from the generator and multiplying it by the efficiency of the generator to find the engine output. The rpms of the engine is 1800. With these two valves the torque was calculated to be 145.878 N*m. The total energy required to run all of the processes in this lab was obtained through the diesel fuel used. All fuels release energy when burned. The amount of heat energy that a fuel can produce is known as the heating value. The text defines the heating value to be the amount of heat released when a unit amount of fuel at room temperature is completely burned and the combustion products are cooled to room temperature (Cengel & Boles, 79). For diesel, the heating value used in all calculations was 43,200 kJ/kg. To find the total amount of energy released by the diesel fuel, a First Law analysis was performed, ending up with Equation 2 below q=m c (T2-T1) (2) where the temperature difference was between temperature measurements taken at each five minute interval. The total amount of energy (in kJ) released by the fuel was found to be 86.4 kJ. However, as combustion is not a perfect process, a 98%
p

combustion efficiency was assumed, resulting in an effective energy release of 84.67 kJ. Through the use of Equation 1, it was then possible to calculate how much energy was being transferred to the diesel engine. Nowhere near the total energy released by the fuel was used by the diesel engine. This was due to the fact that any type of combustion engine has a relatively low efficiency; anywhere from 35% to 60% for the majority of common diesel engines. The efficiency of the diesel engine used in this lab was calculated through the use of two other efficiencies in the overall process. By using the power output to the generator (27.5 kW) and the energy input by the fuel (86.4 kW), it was possible to find the efficiency of this diesel engine through Equation 3 below. Diesel Engine Efficiency=Energy output by engine/Energy input into engine (3) The efficiency of the engine was calculated to be 32.5 %. This answer seems reasonable because it falls within the bracket that was expected for an average diesel engine. Compared to the other efficiencies in the overall process, the diesel engine efficiency was, by far, the lowest. As stated above, only 27.5 kW of work was output by the engine and used to drive the electric generator. Therefore, with a prescribed generator efficiency of 90%, there was a mere 24.75 kW of energy being output by the generator. This is quite a significant difference from the initial 86.4 kW produced by the fuel. Most of the energy from the electric generator was converted to heat in the heating elements. The heating elements added energy to the water, increasing its temperature. 99.6% of the energy that was output by the generator went into increasing the waters temperature. The small amount that was not seen in the increase of the waters temperature was lost as steam and through heat transfer from the water to the surroundings. For most of the energy conversion processes the efficiencies are high, meaning that most of the energy is converted to the new form. The highest efficiency, 99.6%, was in

the conversion of electric energy to heat energy in the heating elements. The efficiency of converting chemical energy to heat energy was 98%, which is not much lower than the electric to heat process. Converting the mechanical energy to electric was not quite as efficient but 90% is still pretty high. The process that brought the overall efficiency down was converting heat energy to mechanical energy in the engine. The engine efficiency was only 32.5% bringing the overall efficiency of the cycle down to 29.1%. In order to determine the net cost of the whole process, it was necessary to determine the total volume of diesel used, in gallons. Once this was found, it was simply a matter of taking the product of the cost per gallon and the total volume to determine the cost. This lab cost approximately $4.16 to run for thirty minutes, at $3.50 per gallon of diesel fuel. As noted above, most of this cost can be attributed to the low efficiency of the engine. Had the efficiency been higher, the cost would have been less due to the smaller amount of fuel consumption. The electric generator, comparatively, had a very high efficiency. If the whole lab process were run using only electricity (at $.08/kWh), the cost would have been $1.10 overall. Therefore, despite electricity being a higher cost energy source, its efficiency more than adequately compensated for that cost. As another means of comparison, consider the three scenarios of heating one gallon of water from 10C to 60C using the energy from only diesel, only electricity, and from the diesel engine in the lab. How much would it cost per kWh to heat this gallon of water? Table 2 illustrates the comparative costs associated with these different situations.
Table 2: Comparison of costs between diesel, electrical, and engine Diesel Fuel Electricity Engine Cp water (kJ/kgK) Delta T (C) Mass of water (kg) Cost ($/kWh) 4.22 50 3.785 $0.03 4.22 50 3.785 $0.02 4.22 50 3.785 $0.30

The data seems to be fairly reasonable, considering that in the lab 42.39 gallons of water was heated, and not just one gallon. At a cost of $.30 for the engine in the lab, it was definitely the most expensive method of heating water. This leap in cost is because of the 32.5% efficiency of the engine. Once again, if the efficiency were higher, the cost would be less. However, the cost would never fall to the levels of electricity or straight diesel because efficiencies of that kind are not currently possible for diesel engines with present-day technology. Conclusion Analyzing the four separate processes yielded some valuable insights into the effectiveness of each process. The fuel and generator efficiencies proved to have the highest efficiencies overall. Both of these processes effectively transferred their energy to the following processes, without many losses. However, the losses due to the diesel engine were quite substantial. At around 32.5% efficiency, this process was the cause of the greatest amount of loss of work potential. Hence, it was discovered that the cost to heat water with the provided diesel engine was far greater than using either straight diesel or electricity. This lab was fun. The fumes made funny colors dance before my eyes. The euphoria cannot be described adequately. Immense heat surrounded me, suffocating every last doubt concerning whether or not this lab was a good idea in the first place.