Heat Engines

Overview
 Engine
o extracts heat from a hot reservoir
o does work
o exhausts remaining heat to cold reservoir
 Efficiency (𝜖)
𝑊𝑏𝑦 𝐸𝑛𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑒
o Ratio of work done by the engine to heat extracted from the hot reservoir ( ≤
𝑄𝐻
𝑇𝐻 −𝑇𝑐
𝑇𝐻
)
o Sterling cycle
 a standard example of a heat engine
 Two isothermal (constant temperature) transitions
 Two isochoric (constant volume) transitions
 Working substance is an ideal gas
Heat Engines
Engine
o Consumes energy
o In return, makes something useful happen
 Internal Combustion Engines
o Use gasoline/diesel fuel
o Turn drive shaft to make vehicles move
 Steam Engines
o Coal as fuel
o Turn locomotive's wheels
 Nuclear Plant
o Uranium as fuel
o Turn generators to make electricity
 Heat Engines
o Convert heat into mechanical work
o Driven by temperature difference
o Extract work as heat flows from a hot region to a cold region
o Temperature difference causes pressure difference
 Causes piston to move + do meaningful work
o Must have cyclical operation
 Does same thing repeatedly with the same result
Turning Heat into Work
 Heat difference key
 Heat flows from hot reservoir through the substance of the engine (usually gas) to the cold
reservoir
Screen clipping taken: 9/18/2017 12:19 PM

 Engine converts some of the heat to mechanical work

o Usually through the expansion and compression of gas
 First Law of Thermodynamics
o The heat that flows from the hot reservoir into the engine must be equal to the sum of the
work done by the engine and the heat that flows out of the engine and into the cold
reservoir (𝑄𝐻 = 𝑊𝑏𝑦 𝐸𝑛𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑒 + 𝑄𝐶 )
 To keep the temperature of the hot reservoir constant, energy must constantly be added to it
o Any energy extracted from the hot reservoir must be replaced
 Efficiency (𝜖) of the engine is the ratio of the work done by the engine to the heat that has to be
𝑊𝑏𝑦 𝐸𝑛𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑒
extracted from the hot reservoir ( 𝑄𝐻
)
Efficiency of a Heat Engine
 Thanks to the first law of thermodynamics
𝑊𝑏𝑦 𝐸𝑛𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑒 𝑄𝐻 −𝑄𝐶
o 𝜖= = = 1 − 𝑄𝐶 /𝑄𝐻
𝑄𝐻 𝑄𝐻
 A 100% efficient heat engine (𝜖 = 1) means that all of the heat extracted from the heat reservoir
is turned into work
o No heat flows into the cold reservoir (𝑄𝐶 = 0)
o Cannot work due to the second law of thermodynamics
 Entropy
o Since the engine is returned to its original state at the end of a cycle, the entropy of the
engine does not change (Δ𝑆𝐸𝑛𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑒 = 0)
o Entropies of the reservoirs do change
1 Δ𝑆
 Change can be determined by definition of temperature (𝑇 = Δ𝑈)
Δ𝑈
 Δ𝑆 = 𝑇
Δ𝑈𝐻 Δ𝑈𝐶
 𝑇𝐻
+ 𝑇𝐶
 Reservoirs do no work, so change in internal energy is entirely heat based
−𝑄𝐻 𝑄

𝑇
+ 𝑇𝐶
𝐻 𝐶
 Entropy of reservoir is the heat flowing into/out of the reservoir to the
temperature of the reservoir
  Second law of Thermodynamics says this must always be greater than 0
(Δ𝑆 ≥ 0)
𝑄𝐶 𝑄𝐻 𝑄𝐶 𝑇𝐶
 𝑇 ≥𝑇 =𝑄 ≥𝑇
𝐶 𝐻 𝐻 𝐻
𝑇𝐶
 Maximum (Carnot) Efficiency (𝜖𝑀𝑎𝑥 = 1 − 𝑇𝐻
)