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The Carnot Cycle01:30

The Carnot Cycle

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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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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 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.
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An Otto engine is a four-stroke engine that uses a mixture of gasoline and air as the working fuel. The fuel is injected into the cylinder, and the piston is moved completely down so that the cylinder is at maximum volume. By moving the piston up, adiabatic compression takes place. The spark plug ignites the gasoline-air mixture, and the burning fuel adds heat to the system at a constant volume. The heated mixture expands adiabatically and gets further cooled by exhausting heat, and this cyclic...
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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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Internal Combustion Engine01:20

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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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Non-equilibrium Microwave Plasma for Efficient High Temperature Chemistry
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Endoreversible Stirling Cycles: Plasma Engines at Maximal Power.

Gregory Behrendt1,2, Sebastian Deffner1,2,3

  • 1Department of Physics, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD 21250, USA.

Entropy (Basel, Switzerland)
|August 28, 2025
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Endoreversible Stirling engines using plasma achieve maximum power at the Curzon-Ahlborn efficiency due to the plasma's equation of state. This finding generalizes beyond ideal gases.

Keywords:
endoreversible Stirling cycleplasma engine

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Area of Science:

  • Thermodynamics
  • Plasma Physics

Background:

  • Endoreversible engine cycles are crucial in finite-time thermodynamics.
  • Stirling engines are a key application area.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the efficiency of endoreversible Stirling engines with plasma.
  • To determine conditions for maximal power output.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of endoreversible Stirling engine cycles.
  • Application of finite-time thermodynamics principles.
  • Examination of plasma's caloric and mechanical equations of state.

Main Results:

  • Endoreversible Stirling engines with plasma achieve maximal power at the Curzon-Ahlborn efficiency.
  • This efficiency is linked to the linear and additive nature of the plasma's caloric equation of state.
  • Findings generalize to various plasmas, not just ideal gases.

Conclusions:

  • The study generalizes the Curzon-Ahlborn efficiency for Stirling engines using specific plasma properties.
  • Photonic equation of state in plasmas leads to lower efficiency for Stirling engines, unlike Otto cycles.