Fundamental of Chemical Engineering

Course level: undergraduate

Course Code: ChEg2101
Credit hour: 5

Lecturer: bisrat yihun

Email: bisrataait@gmail.com
March, 2024
Chapter two
Introduction to Units and Dimensions
 This chapter presents basic techniques for expressing the values of system variables and for setting up
and solving equations that relate these variables.
INSTRUCTIONAL OBJECTIVES
 Convert a quantity expressed in one set of units into its equivalent in any other dimensionally consistent
units using conversion factor tables.
 Identify the units commonly used to express both mass and weight in SI, CGS, and American
Engineering units.
 Identify the number of significant figures in a given value expressed in either decimal or scientific
notation and state the precision with which the value is known based on its significant figures.
 Explain the concept of dimensional homogeneity of equations. Given the units of some terms in an
equation, use this concept to assign units to other terms.
System of units and dimensions
A measured or counted quantity has a numerical
 value and
 a unit
 It is useful in most engineering calculations-and essential in many-to write both the value and the unit of
each quantity appearing in an equation:

A dimension is a property that can be measured, such as

 length, time, mass, or temperature, or
 calculated by multiplying or dividing other dimensions, such as length/time (velocity), length3
(volume), or mass/length3 (density).
Measurable units (as opposed to countable units) are specific values of dimensions that have been defined by
convention, custom, or law, such as
 grams for mass, seconds for time, and centimeters or feet for length.
 Units can be treated like algebraic variables when quantities are
 added, subtracted, multiplied, or divided.
 The numerical values of two quantities may be
 added or subtracted only if the units are the same.

 On the other hand, numerical values and their corresponding units may always be combined by
multiplication or division
Unit Conversion
A measured quantity can be expressed in terms of any units having the appropriate dimension.
 A particular velocity, for instance, may be expressed in
 ft/s, miles/h, cm/yr, or any other ratio of a length unit to a time unit.
 The numerical value of the velocity naturally depends on the units chosen.
 The equivalence between two expressions of the same quantity may be defined in terms of a ratio:

Ratios of the form of above Equations are known as conversion factors.

To convert a quantity expressed in terms of one unit to its equivalent in terms of another unit,
 multiply the given quantity by the conversion factor (new unit/old unit).
For example,
to convert 36 mg to its equivalent in grams, write

(Note how the old units cancel, leaving the desired unit.)
 An alternative way to write this equation is to use a vertical line instead of the multiplication symbol:

 In the given example, the result is known to be correct because milligrams cancel leaving only grams on
the left side, whereas
If you are given a quantity having a compound unit [e.g., miles/h, cal/(g·°C)], and you wish
to convert it to its equivalent in terms of another set of units,
 set up a dimensional equation:
 write the given quantity and its units on the left, write the units of conversion factors that cancel the old
units and replace them with the desired ones,
 fill in the values of the conversion factors, and carry out the indicated arithmetic to find the desired value.
Example 1
1. What is a conversion factor?
2. What is the conversion factor for s/min (s = second)?
3. What is the conversion factor for m3/cm3?
4. Convert an acceleration of 1 cm/s2 to its equivalent in km/yr2
SYSTEMS OF UNITS
A system of units has the following components:
1. Base units
 for mass, length, time, temperature, electrical current, and light intensity.
2. Multiple units
 which are defined as multiples or fractions of base units such as minutes,
hours, and milliseconds, all of which are defined in terms of the base unit of a second.
 Multiple units are defined for convenience rather than necessity: it is simply more convenient to refer to
3 yr than to 94,608,000 s.
3. Derived units
obtained in one of two ways:
(a) By multiplying and dividing base or multiple units (cm2, ft/min, kg. m/s2, etc.). Derived units of this
type are referred to as compound units.
(b) As defined equivalents of compound units (e.g., 1 erg ═ (lg.cm/s 2), 1lbf ═ 32.174 Ibm ·ft/s2).
a. SI unit (Systeme Internationale d'Unites)
 has gained widespread acceptance in the scientific and engineering community.
 the base SI units are -the ampere for electrical current, the candela for luminous intensity, the kelvin for temperature, the
meter (m) for length, the kilogram (kg) for mass, and the second (s) for time.

 Prefixes are used in S1 to indicate powers of ten.

 The most common of these prefixes and their abbreviations are mega (M) for 106 (1 megawatt = 1 MW = 106 watts),
kilo (k) for 103 , centi (c) for 10-2, milli (m) for 10-3 , micro (µ) for 10-6 , and nano (n) for 10-9 .
b. CGS system
 is almost identical to SI unit
 The principal difference being that grams (g) and centimeters (cm) are used instead of kilograms and meters as the base
units of mass and length.
c. American engineering system
 The base units of the American engineering system are the foot (ft) for length, the pound mass (Ibm) for mass, and the
second (s) for time.
 This system has two principal difficulties.
 The first is the occurrence of conversion factors (such as 1 ft/12 in) , which, unlike those in the metric
systems, are not multiples of 10;

 the second, which has to do with the unit of force (lbf = 32.174 Ibm . ft/s2 )
Table
Example 2: Conversion Between Systems of Units

Convert 23 Ibm. ft/min2 to its equivalent in kg·cm/s2

FORCE AND WEIGHT
 According to Newton's second law of motion, force is proportional to the product of mass and acceleration
(length/time2).
 Natural force units are, therefore, kg.m/s2 (SI), g.cm/s2 (CGS), and Ibm .ft/s2 (American engineering).
 In the metric systems, the derived force units (the newton in SI, the dyne in the CGS system) are defined to
equal the natural units:

………………………..……1
In the American engineering system,
 the derived force unit--called a pound-force (lbf)-is defined as the product of a unit mass (1 Ibm) and the
acceleration of gravity at sea level and 45° latitude, which is 32.174 ft/s 2:

…………… ..2
Equations 1 through 2 define conversion factors between natural and derived force
units.
Weight
 The weight of an object is the force exerted on the object by gravitational attraction.
 Suppose that an object of mass m is subjected to a gravitational force W (W is by definition the
weight of the object) and that if this object were falling freely its acceleration would be g.
W = mg
The gravitational acceleration (g)
 varies directly with the mass of the attracting body (the earth, in most problems you will confront) and
inversely with the square of the distance between the centers of mass of the attracting body and the object
being attracted.
 The value of g at sea level and 45° latitude is given below in each system of units:
NUMERICAL CALCULATION AND ESTIMATION
a. Scientific Notation, Significant Figures, and Precision
I. scientific notation,
 Both very large and very small numbers are commonly encountered in process calculations.
 A convenient way to represent such numbers is to use scientific notation, in which a number is
expressed as:
 the product of another number (usually between 0.1 and 10) and a power of 10.
Examples:
123,000,000 = 1.23 x 108 (or 0.123 X 109)
0.000028 = 2.8 x 10-5 (or 0.28 x 10-4)
II. Significant Figures
The significant figures of a number are the digits from the first nonzero digit on the left to either
(a) the last digit (zero or nonzero) on the right if there is a decimal point, or
(b) the last nonzero digit of the number if there is no decimal point.
Note:
 The number of significant figures is easily shown and seen if scientific notation is used.
For example
2300 or 2.3 X 103 has two significant figures.
2300. or 2.300 X 103 has four significant figures.
2300.0 or 2.3000 X 103 has five significant figures.
23,040 or 2.304 X 104 has four significant figures.
0.035 or 3.5 X 10-2 has two significant figures.
0.03500 or 3.500 X 10-2 has four significant figures.
The number of significant figures in the reported value of :
 a measured or calculated quantity provides an indication of the precision with which the quantity is known: the
more significant figures, the more precise is the value.
Generally, if you report the value of a measured quantity with three significant figures, you indicate that the value of the
third of these figures may be off by as much as a half-unit.

Example :
if you report a mass as 8.3 g (two significant figures), you indicate that the mass lies somewhere between 8.25 and 8.35 g,
whereas if you give the value as 8.300 g (four significant figures) you indicate that the mass lies between 8.2995 and
8.3005 g.
Note,
 however, that this rule applies only to measured quantities or numbers calculated from measured quantities.
 If a quantity is known precisely-like
 a pure integer (2) or
 a counted rather than measured quantity (16 oranges)-its value implicitly contains an infinite number
of significant figures (5 cows really means 5.0000 ... cows).
Validating Results
Every problem you will ever have to solve-in this and other courses and in your professional career-will involve two
critical questions: (1) How do I get a solution?
(2) When I get one, how do I know it's right?
Among approaches you can use to validate a quantitative problem solution are
 back substitution,
 order-of-magnitude estimation, and
 the test of reasonableness.
I. Back-substitution
 is straightforward: after you solve a set of equations, substitute your solution back into the equations and make sure it
works.
II. Order-of-magnitude estimation
 means coming up with a crude and easy-to-obtain approximation of the answer to a problem and making sure that the
more exact solution comes reasonably close to it.
III. Applying the test of reasonableness
 means verifying that the solution makes sense.
For Example,
If, a calculated velocity of water flowing in a pipe is faster than the speed of light or the calculated temperature in a
chemical reactor is higher than the interior temperature of the sun, you should suspect that a mistake has been made
somewhere.
DIMENSIONAL HOMOGENEITY AND DIMENSIONLESS QUANTITIES
a. Dimensional Homogeneity
 We began our discussion of units and dimensions by saying that quantities can be added and subtracted only if their
units are the same.
 If the units are the same, it follows that the dimensions of each term must be the same.
For example,
if two quantities can be expressed in terms of grams/second, both must have the dimension (mass/time).
This suggests the following rule:
Every valid equation must be dimensionally homogeneous: that is, all additive terms on both sides of the equation
must have the same dimensions.
Consider the equation
u(m/s) = uo(m/s) + g(m/s2)t(s) …………………………..(a)
This equation is dimensionally homogeneous,
 since each of the terms u, uo, and gt has the same dimensions (length/time).
On the other hand,
 the equation u = uo + g is not dimensionally homogeneous (why not?) and therefore cannot possibly be valid.
Equation (a) is both dimensionally
 homogeneous and
 consistent in its units, in that each additive term has the units m/s.
If an equation is dimensionally homogeneous but its additive terms have inconsistent units,
 the terms may be made consistent simply by applying the appropriate conversion factors.
For example,
suppose that in the dimensionally homogeneous equation u = uo + gt it is desired to express the time (t) in
minutes and the other quantities in the units given m/s.
The equation can be written as
u(m/s) = uo(m/s) + g(m/s2)t(min)(60 s/min)
= uo + 60gt
Each additive term again has units of m/s, so the equation is consistent.
b. Dimensionless Quantity
A dimensionless quantity can be
 a pure number (2, 1.3, 5/2) or
 a multiplicative combination of variables with no net dimensions:
Consider

Dimensionless quantities may be:

 Exponents (such as the 2 in X2),
 transcendental functions (such as log, exp = e, and sin), and
 arguments of transcendental functions (such as the X in sin X) must be dimensionless quantities.
For example,
102 makes perfect sense, but 102ft is meaningless, as is log (20 s) or sin (3 dynes).
Exercise
1. Consider the equation
D(ft) = 3t(s) - 4
a. If the equation is valid, what are the dimensions of the constants 3 and 4?
b. If the equation is consistent in its units, what are the units of 3 and 4?
c. Derive an equation for distance in meters in terms of time in minutes.
2. A quantity k depends on the temperature T in the following manner:

The units of the quantity 20,000 are ca/mol, and T is in K (kelvin). What are the units of 1.2 X 10 5 and 1.987?
EN
D