Coffee Pot: Experimental Laboratory 2

Shane A. Meikle1, Group # 02, ASEN 2002, 10/26/2011

The reason behind this experiment is in hopes of finding the thermal efficiency of the Carafe Coffee Pot. This will require the use of many thermodynamic principles. The main principle used is the first law of thermodynamics, or energy in equals energy out. Start out by using the flow meter, and thermocouples to calculate the total flow and temperatures of the cold water, and heated water. Using these values find a constant Cp that will be used in conjunction with the change in temperature to calculate the enthalpy. With these values Q can now be calculated with the first law. Now all that is required is to obtain the average power that was measured by the flow meter. With this we divide Q by the average power to obtain the thermal efficiency, . We obtain a thermal efficiency of 0.5047 which represents a rather efficient machine.

Nomenclature
Cp h m Q T V W z = = = = = = = = = specific heat capacity enthalpy mass flow rate thermal efficiency heat transfer rate temperature velocity power of the electrical output potential height

I. Introduction
his lab required the use of a Carafe coffee pot with a DAQ attached to obtain data. Our experiment uses the coffee pot extensively to measure the flow rate and temperature of the water. We hope to become more experienced with working with different types of thermodynamic cycles. By analyzing the mass flow rate, heat transfer, and power we hope to obtain the thermal efficiency of the coffee pot. By obtaining this data, we will have a better understanding of thermodynamic cycles, and coffee pots.

II. Theory and Experiment

The system for which we will be considering is the coffee pot, and its heating elements. This system must obey the first law of thermodynamics. This law can be written as an equation as shown in Eq. (1). Eq. (1) This is the basic equation of the first law. What this equation is referring to is that energy in will equal to the energy out. The energy in the coffee pot consists of the heat added, the energy of the mass, and the energy from the electrical output, or power. In our experiment, we assumed that there was no kinetic or potential energy, and also there is no power from the volume boundary. Thus reducing Eq. (1) to:
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Eq. (2) We also assumed a constant specific heat capacity Cp value, which we can use to relate temperature to enthalpy. This relationship is seen in Eq. (3).  Eq. (3)

Eq. (3) will be substituted for when we solve for the heat transfer rate, Q. From these equations we obtain our types of data we must measure. We must measure the mass flow rate, . We also must obtain the electrical power, W. We will also need to find the enthalpy, , velocity, , and potential energy, , at both the inlet, , and exit, . This all can be seen in Figure (1).

Mass flow

. Coffee Pot System

Mass flow

Figure 1. This shows our coffee pot flow chart. The arrows in the diagram represent the direction of the flow. Here we see that water, the mass, enters in the coffee pot at the inlet. We also obtain our inlet variables at this point. Here is our first thermocouple. It resides on T1 from Figure (1). This is located here because it is where the cold water is held until it is heated. This gives us a good measuring point at the inlet. We have power from an electrical outlet that is being used to power the heater to heat up the water. This is where we find our second thermocouple. We find this thermocouple at T7. This location is chosen because it is located right after the water is heated. This way we obtain the closest value to the heat transfer to the water. Then the coffee pot begins to drain into the cup, where we measure our last temperature, T. The last thermocouple is at T16. This is where the water is drained into the pot. This gives us the final values of the flow process. Here we obtain our exit variables. This is our coffee pot system that we will be studying for the experiment. From the thermocouple we obtain the temperature we need at different locations. We still require the mass flow. This is obtained from using the flow meter.

Figure 1. Coffee Maker Instrumentation (T denotes thermocouples)

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The flow meter gives us the amount of pulses per liter, and the total amount of liters. A pulse is a small amount of water flowing past the sensor. The flow meter has an infrared sensor to measure the flow as the process continues. So for each pulse, the sensor measures the pulse number, and the amount of water that flows past. This gives us all the information we require to solve for the mass flow rate. This relates to mass flow rate, as we can find the average mass flow rate of the whole process. Using the total amount of liters divided by the time we obtain our average mass flow rate. We will assume for this lab minimal changes in volume to allow one liter is equal to one kilogram. This average mass flow rate can be used in Eq. (2) to finally acquire the heat transfer rate. With all our information we can now begin formulating the equation needed to determine the heat transfer rate. We will first isolate the heat transfer rate as seen in Eq. (4).  Eq. (4)

Now that we have isolated Q, we now simplify our equation to include only the available measurements we have obtained. This requires us to substitute Eq. (3) into Eq. (4).  Eq. (5)

Eq. (5) now allows us to solve for Q with our measured quantities. It also requires the constant specific heat capacity with constant pressure to relate temperature to enthalpy. With these equations we can finally obtain the thermal efficiency of the coffee pot. For the thermal efficiency, we will take the energy sought, Q, divided by the energy bought, W. For this experiment we will take the average power rate as the energy bought. This is because we are using the average mass flow rate to calculate the heat transfer rate. By this method we get an average value of heat transfer, thus causing us to divide by the average power. The thermal efficiency is calculated in Eq. (6). 


Eq. (6)

Now we have an equation with all our measured quantities. This now allows us to just plug in all our values to get our thermal efficiency for the coffee pot. These values have minor uncertainties that will affect our final result. We assume that has no error, as it will be treated as a constant for this experiment. We have errors in the calculation of the temperature. This is measured using a thermocouple, and how it is made greatly influences its accuracy. We also have a small error in the calculation of the mass flow rate. It is derived from the flow meter which also comes with systematic and random errors. Then when we calculate our average power, we also have some minor errors just from the flow meter. Our calculations have extremely small error values, so they can be ignored. These uncertainties should only amount to a small range for our values.

III. Results
To begin our experiment, we start off with the hot-flow calibration of the Coffee Pot flow meter. Our experiment used coffee pot #2. We ran a few initial calibration tests to warm the coffee pot up. These calibration values were discarded as they were not accurate. We began to start calibrating the coffee pot. We repeated this multiple times in order to obtain a more accurate average pulse count per liter. Our data is seen in Table (1). Table 1. Calibration Data of our hot-flow calibration Test 2 11150 Test 3 10407 Test 4 11096 Test 5 10445 Test 6 11324 Test 7 11560 Test 8 11056 Test 9 11027 Pulses/250ml Mean 11008 Pulses STD 427 Pulses/L VI Calibration Number 44033 % pulses/L STD 1.0 Pulse/L Actual 36000

From Table (1). one can see that our calibration number, and the actual one vary dramatically. Our value is approximately 8000 over the actual value. This difference may be caused by increased usage, and the calibration may alter over time. We obtained our calibration value by multiplying the mean pulse by four. With this set of data we began our experiment. We used the flow meter to measure our pulses and the total flow. We used LabView VI, to record and save this data. With our coffee pot we measured the total flow of water, ASEN 2002 3 Fall 2011

temperature in three places using thermocouples, the power, and also we kept track of time. I created a script file in MATALB to load the data into the separate measurements. My code also plotted the total flow vs. time and the temperature vs. time. A transcript of the code can be found in the Appendix. Our first graph is the total flow vs. time. You can see this graph in Figure (3). This graph shows the total amount of water that has passed through the flow meter. Our flow meter read 0.2504 L
To ta l F lo w o f W a te r in C o ffe e P o t 0 .3 5 for our total amount of water. This makes sense as we only input approximately 0.25 L. 0 .3 We also see that the slope of the graph is very linear. This is important because the 0 .2 5 slope is the mass flow rate. Thus since the graph models a linear equation we can 0 .2 assume that the mass flow rate is constant. This idea will be used to calculate the mass 0 .1 5 flow rate later on. Our next graph we obtain from the 0 .1 LabView data is the temperature graph. This is seen in Figure (4). This graph not only contains our temperature readings, but also 0 .0 5 has the location of each thermocouple. The first thermocouple was placed in the water 0 0 50 100 150 200 250 tank, to obtain the temperature on the cold Tim e (s ) water before it is heated. The next thermocouple is located right after the water Figure 3. Total Flow measured by the flow meter is heated. This gives us the closest estimate for the heat transfer rate from the heater to the water. Then we have our final thermocouple located in the basin pot. This collects the temperature at the end of the experiment. As we can see all these values make sense. The average temperature for our first thermocouple is approximately 24 C. This makes sense as that is room temperature. Then for our second thermocouple at the heater we have an average temperature of about 93 C. This makes sense as the T o tal F lo w (L )

The rm o co up le Te m p e ra ture R e a d ing s 100

90

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T e mp e rat u re (C )

70

60 The rm o co up le a t T1 The rm o co up le a t T7 The rm o co up le a t T1 6

50

40

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100 Tim e (s )

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boiling temperature in Boulder is approximately 95 C. There is a minor discrepancy in the two degree difference. This could be due to the fact that the water may be cooled a small amount before our thermocouple measures it. Then for our last thermocouple, we have an average temperature of 73 C. This is reasonable as the coffee pot makes hot coffee, so it is understandable that the final water temperature will be in this range. Also the temperature does not vary much for each thermocouple. This shows that there is not a significant error in these measurements. Now with all our data, we can begin to solve for the thermal efficiency. We start by solving for the mass flow rate of the water. As discussed earlier we can assume that the mass flow rate is a constant. We can also assume minor changes in volume, to obtain that one liter is equivalent to one kilogram. This will make the mass flow rate calculation easier.

Figure 4. Thermocouple temperature readings, and locations. Our mass flow rate is calculated in Eq. (7). This is just our total flow of water, 0.2504 kg, divided by the total time it took to process the water through the coffee pot. The time is 231.5060 seconds. We obtain a mass flow rate of 
   

Eq. (7)

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0.0011 kg/s. This is a very reasonable answer as we processed only 0.25 L in about four minutes. With our mass flow rate we can now begin to calculate the heat transfer to the water from the heater. We use Eq. (5). to find our heat transfer rate. This requires a constant Cp value. We obtain this value by summing the temperatures of the first and second thermocouple and finding its average. We ignore the last thermocouple because we are only interested in the heat transfer rate between the beginning and right after it is heated. We obtain an average temperature of 330 Kelvin. Using specific heat tables for various elements, we found that our Cp value is 4.184 J/(gK). Now we obtain our heat transfer rate, Q. For our we use the average temperature values for the water tank, 24 C, and the average value of the heater, 93 C. For Eq. (5) it requires that our temperature is in Kelvins, so we convert our units. We finally obtain Q =307.0593 W. Now we can finally solve for the thermal efficiency. We need to obtain the average power because our other estimates were based on averages. It follows that we need to use our average power to keep this consistent. We obtain an average power of 608.3537 W. Plugging in our values into Eq. (6) we obtain our thermal efficiency, = 0.5047. All our computed values can be seen in Table (2). Table 2. Calculated values including Q, and thermal efficiency 0.0011 kg/s Cp 4.184 J/(g*K) 67.8574 K Q 307.0593 W 608.3537 W 0.5047

We observe that we have a decently efficient cycle. It operates at about 50% which is an acceptable and reasonable rate for a coffee pot.

IV. Discussion
Our experiment has many different variables that affect our efficiency. One of these factors can be our thermocouple locations. Our first thermocouple location at T1 was decided on because we wanted to measure the temperature of the water entering the coffee pot. This is the best location because as the water gets drained from the tank the thermocouple measures its temperature right before it heads to the heater. Our second thermocouple was at T7, and this was a fairly reasonable location. This location affects our efficiency the most because it involves the heat transfer rate. We believed that this location was the closest we could get to the heater, but as seen in our average temperature values we could improve the location closer to the heater. This would increase our thermal efficiency because we would have a higher temperature, and measure a bigger heat transfer rate. Since the difference in the actual boiling temperature and our temperature is only about two degrees Celsius, it will be very minor. The third thermocouple acted as more of a control variable. It was not needed to calculate the thermal efficiency, but it helped us compare the temperature between the cold and heated water. This thermocouple could have been repositioned to a position near the heater, so we could have back up data. This could also show any error in our current thermocouple we used for the heater. Through our results, we realized that there was a drastic difference of 8,000 pulses between our estimated value, and the actual one. There are a few reasons for this discrepancy. One reason is that after many years of using the flow meter, its calibration will begin to vary from the actual. This is just the slow decomposition of the coffee pot, as it cannot remain in perfect condition forever. The other reason is that after many uses of the coffee pot, and continual calibration can offset the sensor. This would cause in our case an increase in the calibration values. This discrepancy is not uncommon. Each coffee pot had a difference of around 8,000 between the estimated value, and the actual one. Thus we can conclude that this is not something only wrong with our experiment. For this experiment, we decided on the use of a constant Cp value. We decided on this because we needed to relate the enthalpy to temperature. One of the few ways to accomplish this is to use a constant specific heat capacity. This was chosen because in the experiment there is no change in pressure. We can assume an isobaric process thus allowing us to use the constant specific heat capacity. Our specific heat capacity was obtained from averaging both the temperature of the heater, and cold water tank. We then use that temperature to obtain the specific heat capacity for water by using the specific heat tables. This gives us a specific heat capacity that is average for the whole process. This then allows us to obtain our enthalpy and obtain the heat transfer rate. For our efficiency calculations, we used the power as the energy bought. This was needed because for our efficiency equation we had the heat transfer rate as our energy sought. We could not divide a rate by the total energy because it would not work in the equation. The difference between using a rate, and just total energy is minimal. This is because we can obtain our total energy by multiplying our heat transfer rate by the time. The same can be done for the power. If this is actually calculated, the value of the thermal efficiency will be the same as before. One just has to be consistent in the equation. If you use rates, you must have both values as rates, and it is the same for the total energy. ASEN 2002 5 Fall 2011

Our thermal efficiency is very reasonable. After a little research it is obvious that a thermal efficiency of 50% is rather good. Most machines have a thermal efficiency below 50%. From this information we can be assured that we have a reasonable efficiency. There are a few ways to improve the efficiency for the coffee pot. One suggestion is that it would be much better to have the heater closer to where the water drops into the coffee pot basin. This would ensure that the heat transfer from the heater would dissipate the least out of the water. We would also obtain a greater enthalpy, which results in a better efficiency. Another suggestion is to change the set-up of the coffee pot. It seems redundant to use the power outlet to power the heater, as this wastes energy through resistance of the wire. It would be better to just have the electrical input create the heat. This way we can get more energy out of the power, and greatly increase our efficiency. This would require a new invention of using the electrical current to create heat. This is something that can be accomplished to improve the efficiency.

V. Conclusion
Throughout this lab we hoped to obtain an accurate thermal efficiency of the Coffee Pot. By using a flow meter and a few thermocouples, we obtained the beginning data to start our experiment. We began by observing the graphs of different variables in relation to time. We observe that our mass flow rate is a constant value, and calculate its value. With the mass flow rate, we can use the first law of thermodynamics to obtain the heat transfer rate from the heater. By assuming a constant specific heat value, we obtain our heat transfer rate. With this it is only one calculation away from the thermal efficiency. We just divide by the average power, and obtain a thermal efficiency of 50.47%. Thus our coffee pot is a fairly efficient machine.

Appendix
%Coffee Pot Data Analysis clear all close all FS = 12; [time, totalflow, TC, power] = loadvalues('coffeepot2'); set(gcf, 'defaultaxesfontsize', FS) figure(1) plot(time, totalflow, 'o') xlabel('Time (s)') ylabel('Total Flow (L)') Title('Total Flow of Water in Coffee Pot') figure(2) set(gcf, 'defaultaxesfontsize', FS) plot(time, TC(:,1),'g+') xlabel('Time (s)') ylabel('Temperature (C)') Title('Thermocouple Temperature Readings') hold on plot(time, TC(:,3), 'rx') plot(time, TC(:,2), 'co') legend('Thermocouple at T1', 'Thermocouple at T7', 'Thermocouple at T16',... 'Location', 'Best') Cp = 4.184; TC = TC + 273.15; Mavg = totalflow(end)/time(end) Q = Mavg*Cp*(mean(TC(:,3))-mean(TC(:,1)))*1000 N = Q/mean(power) %----------------------------------------------------------------function [time, totalflow, TC, power ] = loadvalues(filename) %Loadvalues(filename) %loads the coffee pot lab and load the data into % time, total flow, Thermocouple for 0,1,2,3 but 3 was not used so will be ASEN 2002 6 Fall 2011

% zero. IT also loads the power values. %tline = fgetl(filename) %tline(1,:) = []; %x = load(filename) x = importdata(filename); time = x.data(:,1); totalflow = x.data(:,2)/4; TC = x.data(:, 3:6); power = x.data(:,7); end

References
Experimental Laboratory 2 Instrumented Coffee Maker Tests, ASEN 2002, 9/28/2011. Accessed 9/28/2011 Moran, M. J., Shapiro, H. N., Munson, B. R., and DeWitt, D. P., Introduction to Thermal Systems Engineering, Wiley, New Jersey, 2003 3 Thermal Efficiency, October 18, 2011. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_efficiency Accessed 10/25/2011.]
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