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Related Concept Videos

The Carnot Cycle and the Second Law of Thermodynamics01:20

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The Carnot engine works between two heat reservoirs of fixed temperatures. The Carnot cycle begs the following question: Is it possible to devise a heat engine that is more efficient than a Carnot engine between two fixed temperatures? The answer lies in designing a Carnot refrigerator.
Since the individual steps in a Carnot cycle can be reversed, the entire cycle is, thus, reversible. If a Carnot cycle is reversed, it becomes a Carnot refrigerator. It extracts heat Qc from a cold reservoir at...
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Converting work to heat is an irreversible process, and the purpose of a heat engine is to reverse the effect partially. Heat engines aim to increase the efficiency of the reversal, that is, maximize the work retrieved from heat. If the efficiency of a heat engine were 100%, it would imply reversing the process completely without introducing any other effect. Thus, it would violate the second law of thermodynamics.
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The hypothetical Carnot cycle consists of an ideal gas subjected to two isothermal and two adiabatic processes. Since the internal energy of an ideal gas depends only on its temperature, which is the same before and after the completion of the Carnot cycle, there is no change in its internal energy. Hence, using the first law of thermodynamics, the total heat exchanged by the ideal gas equals the total work done. Thus, we can quantify the efficiency of the Carnot cycle via the heat exchanged...
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A heat engine is a device used to extract heat from a source and then convert it into mechanical work used for various applications. For example, a steam engine on an old-style train can produce the work needed for driving the train.
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The internal combustion engine is a heat engine that uses the byproducts of combustion as the working fluid instead of using a heat transfer medium to transfer heat. The combustion is done in a way that produces high-pressure combustion products that can be expanded through a turbine or piston to create work. Internal combustion engines can again be categorized into three kinds: (1) spark ignition gasoline engines, most commonly used in automobiles, (2) compression ignition diesel engines that...
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In the Carnot engine, which achieves the maximum efficiency between two reservoirs of fixed temperatures, the total change in entropy is zero. The observation can be generalized by considering any reversible cyclic process consisting of many Carnot cycles. Thus, it can be stated that the total entropy change of any ideal reversible cycle is zero.
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A Rapid Method for Modeling a Variable Cycle Engine
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Revisiting Endoreversible Carnot Engine: Extending the Yvon Engine.

Xiu-Hua Zhao1, Yu-Han Ma1,2,3

  • 1School of Physics and Astronomy, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.

Entropy (Basel, Switzerland)
|February 26, 2025
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

The extended Yvon engine, comparable to the Curzon-Ahlborn engine, demonstrates that maximum power efficiency is independent of heat transfer coefficients. Both engines represent equivalent forms of the endoreversible Carnot heat engine.

Keywords:
Curzon–Ahlborn efficiencyYvon engineendoreversible heat enginefinite-time thermodynamics

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Area of Science:

  • Thermodynamics
  • Heat Engines

Background:

  • The Curzon-Ahlborn (CA) engine, introduced in 1975, is a foundational model in finite-time thermodynamics.
  • The Yvon engine, proposed in 1955, shares the same maximum power efficiency as the CA engine but had limited influence due to its specific setup.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To generalize the Yvon engine model to a level comparable with the CA engine.
  • To explain the universality of maximum power efficiency being independent of heat transfer coefficients.

Main Methods:

  • Extension of the Yvon engine model.
  • Derivation of the power expression for the extended Yvon engine.
  • Comparative analysis of the extended Yvon engine and the CA engine.

Main Results:

  • The generalized Yvon engine achieves a level of generality similar to the CA engine.
  • The universality of the Curzon-Ahlborn efficiency (ηCA) being independent of heat transfer coefficients is demonstrated.
  • The extended Yvon engine and CA engine are shown to be equivalent, representing steady-state and cyclic forms, respectively.

Conclusions:

  • The extended Yvon engine provides a more general framework for analyzing endoreversible Carnot heat engines.
  • Finite-time thermodynamics can be understood through both steady-state (Yvon) and cyclic (CA) models.
  • The efficiency at maximum power for these engines is a universal characteristic, independent of specific heat transfer details.