Carnot heat engine

A Carnot heat engine[2] is a theoretical heat engine that operates on the

Carnot cycle. The basic model for this engine was developed by Nicolas
Léonard Sadi Carnot in 1824. The Carnot engine model was graphically
expanded by Benoît Paul Émile Clapeyron in 1834 and mathematically
explored by Rudolf Clausius in 1857, work that led to the fundamental
thermodynamic concept of entropy. The Carnot engine is the most
efficient heat engine which is theoretically possible.[3] The efficiency
depends only upon the absolute temperatures of the hot and cold heat
reservoirs between which it operates.

A heat engine acts by transferring energy from a warm region to a cool

region of space and, in the process, converting some of that energy to
mechanical work. The cycle may also be reversed. The system may be
worked upon by an external force, and in the process, it can transfer
thermal energy from a cooler system to a warmer one, thereby acting as a
refrigerator or heat pump rather than a heat engine.

Every thermodynamic system exists in a particular state. A

thermodynamic cycle occurs when a system is taken through a series of Axial cross section of
different states, and finally returned to its initial state. In the process of Carnot's heat engine. In this
going through this cycle, the system may perform work on its diagram, abgh is a
surroundings, thereby acting as a heat engine. cylindrical vessel, cd is a
movable piston, and A and B
The Carnot engine is a theoretical construct, useful for exploring the are constant–temperature
efficiency limits of other heat engines. An actual Carnot engine, however, bodies. The vessel may be
would be completely impractical to build. placed in contact with either
body or removed from both
(as it is here).[1]

Carnot's diagram
In the adjacent diagram, from Carnot's 1824 work, Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire,[4] there are
"two bodies A and B, kept each at a constant temperature, that of A being higher than that of B. These two
bodies to which we can give, or from which we can remove the heat without causing their temperatures to
vary, exercise the functions of two unlimited reservoirs of caloric. We will call the first the furnace and
the second the refrigerator."[5] Carnot then explains how we can obtain motive power, i.e., "work", by
carrying a certain quantity of heat from body A to body B. It also acts as a cooler and hence can also act
as a refrigerator.

Modern diagram
The previous image shows the original piston-and-
cylinder diagram used by Carnot in discussing his
ideal engine. The figure at right shows a block
diagram of a generic heat engine, such as the Carnot
engine. In the diagram, the "working body" (system),
a term introduced by Clausius in 1850, can be any
fluid or vapor body through which heat Q can be
introduced or transmitted to produce work. Carnot Carnot engine diagram (modern) - where an
amount of heat QH flows from a high temperature
had postulated that the fluid body could be any
TH furnace through the fluid of the "working body"
substance capable of expansion, such as vapor of
(working substance) and the remaining heat QC
water, vapor of alcohol, vapor of mercury, a flows into the cold sink TC, thus forcing the
permanent gas, air, etc. Although in those early years, working substance to do mechanical work W on
engines came in a number of configurations, typically the surroundings, via cycles of contractions and
QH was supplied by a boiler, wherein water was expansions.
boiled over a furnace; QC was typically removed by a
stream of cold flowing water in the form of a
condenser located on a separate part of the engine. The output work, W, is transmitted by the movement
of the piston as it is used to turn a crank-arm, which in turn was typically used to power a pulley so as to
lift water out of flooded salt mines. Carnot defined work as "weight lifted through a height".

Carnot cycle
The Carnot cycle when acting as a heat
engine consists of the following steps:

1. Reversible isothermal expansion of

the gas at the "hot" temperature,
T H (isothermal heat addition or
absorption). During this step (A to B)
the gas is allowed to expand and it
does work on the surroundings. The
temperature of the gas (the system)
does not change during the process,
and thus the expansion is isothermic.
The gas expansion is propelled by
absorption of heat energy Q H and of
entropy ΔS H = Q H / T H from the high
temperature reservoir. Figure 1: A Carnot cycle illustrated on a PV diagram to
illustrate the work done.
2. Isentropic (reversible adiabatic)
expansion of the gas (isentropic
work output). For this step (B to C)
the piston and cylinder are assumed to be thermally insulated, thus they neither gain nor
lose heat. The gas continues to expand, doing work on the surroundings, and losing an
equivalent amount of internal energy. The gas expansion causes it to cool to the "cold"
temperature, T C. The entropy remains unchanged.
3. Reversible isothermal compression of the gas at the "cold" temperature, T C
(isothermal heat rejection) (C to D). Now the gas is exposed to the cold temperature
reservoir while the surroundings do work on the gas by compressing it (such as through the
 return compression of a piston), while
causing an amount of waste heat
Q C < 0 (with the standard sign
convention for heat) and of entropy
ΔS C = Q C/T C < 0 to flow out of the
gas to the low temperature reservoir.
(In magnitude, this is the same
amount of entropy absorbed in step 1.
The entropy decreases in isothermal
compression since the multiplicity of
the system decreases with the
volume.) In terms of magnitude, the
recompression work performed by the
surroundings in this step is less than
the work performed on the
surroundings in step 1 because it Figure 2: A Carnot cycle acting as a heat engine,
occurs at a lower pressure due to the illustrated on a temperature-entropy diagram. The cycle
lower temperature (i.e. the resistance takes place between a hot reservoir at temperature T H
to compression is lower under step 3 and a cold reservoir at temperature T C. The vertical axis
than the force of expansion under
is temperature, the horizontal axis is entropy.
step 1). We can refer to the first law of
thermodynamics to explain this
behavior: ΔU= W+Q .
4. Isentropic compression of the gas (isentropic work input) (D to A). Once again the
piston and cylinder are assumed to be thermally insulated and the cold temperature
reservoir is removed. During this step, the surroundings continue to do work to further
compress the gas and both the temperature and pressure rise now that the heat sink has
been removed. This additional work increases the internal energy of the gas, compressing it
and causing the temperature to rise to T H. The entropy remains unchanged. At this point
the gas is in the same state as at the start of step 1.

Carnot's theorem
Carnot's theorem is a formal
statement of this fact: No engine
operating between two heat reservoirs
can be more efficient than a Carnot
engine operating between the same
reservoirs.

Real ideal engines (left) compared to the Carnot cycle (right). The
entropy of a real material changes with temperature. This change
is indicated by the curve on a T–S diagram. For this figure, the
curve indicates a vapor-liquid equilibrium (See Rankine cycle).
Explanation Irreversible systems and losses of heat (for example, due to
This maximum efficiency η I is friction) prevent the ideal from taking place at every step.

defined as above:

W is the work done by the system (energy exiting the system as work),
Q H is the heat put into the system (heat energy entering the system),
 T C is the absolute temperature of the cold reservoir, and
T H is the absolute temperature of the hot reservoir.
A corollary to Carnot's theorem states that: All reversible engines operating between the same heat
reservoirs are equally efficient.

It is easily shown that the efficiency η is maximum when the entire cyclic process is a reversible process.
This means the total entropy of system and surroundings (the entropies of the hot furnace, the "working
fluid" of the heat engine, and the cold sink) remains constant when the "working fluid" completes one
cycle and returns to its original state. (In the general and more realistic case of an irreversible process, the
total entropy of this combined system would increase.)

Since the "working fluid" comes back to the same state after one cycle, and entropy of the system is a
state function, the change in entropy of the "working fluid" system is 0. Thus, it implies that the total
entropy change of the furnace and sink is zero, for the process to be reversible and the efficiency of the
engine to be maximum. This derivation is carried out in the next section.

The coefficient of performance (COP) of the heat engine is the reciprocal of its efficiency.

Efficiency of real heat engines

For a real heat engine, the total thermodynamic process is generally irreversible. The working fluid is
brought back to its initial state after one cycle, and thus the change of entropy of the fluid system is 0, but
the sum of the entropy changes in the hot and cold reservoir in this one cyclical process is greater than 0.

The internal energy of the fluid is also a state variable, so its total change in one cycle is 0. So the total
work done by the system W is equal to the net heat put into the system, the sum of > 0 taken up and
the waste heat < 0 given off: [6]

(2)
For real engines, stages 1 and 3 of the Carnot cycle, in which heat is absorbed by the "working fluid"
from the hot reservoir, and released by it to the cold reservoir, respectively, no longer remain ideally
reversible, and there is a temperature differential between the temperature of the reservoir and the
temperature of the fluid while heat exchange takes place.

During heat transfer from the hot reservoir at to the fluid, the fluid would have a slightly lower
temperature than , and the process for the fluid may not necessarily remain isothermal. Let be
the total entropy change of the fluid in the process of intake of heat.

(3)

where the temperature of the fluid T is always slightly lesser than , in this process.

So, one would get:

(4)
Similarly, at the time of heat injection from the fluid to the cold reservoir one would have, for the
magnitude of total entropy change < 0 of the fluid in the process of expelling heat:

(5)

where, during this process of transfer of heat to the cold reservoir, the temperature of the fluid T is always
slightly greater than .

We have only considered the magnitude of the entropy change here. Since the total change of entropy of
the fluid system for the cyclic process is 0, we must have

(6)
The previous three equations, namely (3), (4), (5), substituted into (6) to give:[7]

(7)

For [ΔSh ≥ (Qh/Th)] +[ΔSc ≥ (Qc/Tc)] = 0

[ΔSh ≥ (Qh/Th)] = - [ΔSc ≥ (Qc/Tc)]

= [-ΔSc ≤ (-Qc/Tc)]

it is at least (Qh/Th) ≤ (-Qc/Tc)

Equations (2) and (7) combine to give

(8)

To derive this step needs two adiabatic processes involved to show an isentropic process property for the
ratio of the changing volumes of two isothermal processes are equal.

Most importantly, since the two adiabatic processes are volume works without heat lost, and since the
ratio of volume changes for this two processes are the same, so the works for these two adiabatic
processes are the same with opposite direction to each other, namely, one direction is work done by the
system and the other is work done on the system; therefore, heat efficiency only concerns the amount of
work done by the heat absorbed comparing to the amount of heat absorbed by the system.

Therefore, (W/Qh) = (Qh - Qc) / Qh

= 1 - (Qc/Qh)

= 1 - (Tc/Th)

And, from (7)

(Qh/Th) ≤ (-Qc/Tc) here Qc it is less than 0 (release heat)

(Tc/Th) ≤ (-Qc/Qh)

-(Tc/Th) ≥ (Qc/Qh)
1+[-(Tc/Th)] ≥ 1+(Qc/Qh)

1 - (Tc/Th) ≥ (Qh + Qc)/Qh here Qc<0,

1 - (Tc/Th) ≥ (Qh - Qc)/Qh

1 - (Tc/Th) ≥ W/Qh

Hence,

(9)

where is the efficiency of the real engine, and is the efficiency of the Carnot engine working

between the same two reservoirs at the temperatures and . For the Carnot engine, the entire process
is 'reversible', and Equation (7) is an equality. Hence, the efficiency of the real engine is always less than
the ideal Carnot engine.

Equation (7) signifies that the total entropy of system and surroundings (the fluid and the two reservoirs)
increases for the real engine, because (in a surroundings-based analysis) the entropy gain of the cold
reservoir as flows into it at the fixed temperature , is greater than the entropy loss of the hot
reservoir as leaves it at its fixed temperature . The inequality in Equation (7) is essentially the
statement of the Clausius theorem.

According to the second theorem, "The efficiency of the Carnot engine is independent of the nature of the
working substance".

The Carnot engine and Rudolf Diesel

In 1892 Rudolf Diesel patented an internal combustion engine inspired by the Carnot engine. Diesel knew
a Carnot engine is an ideal that cannot be built, but he thought he had invented a working approximation.
His principle was unsound, but in his struggle to implement it he developed a practical Diesel engine.

The conceptual problem was how to achieve isothermal expansion in an internal combustion engine,
since burning fuel at the highest temperature of the cycle would only raise the temperature further.
Diesel's patented solution was: having achieved the highest temperature just by compressing the air, to
add a small amount of fuel at a controlled rate, such that heating caused by burning the fuel would be
counteracted by cooling caused by air expansion as the piston moved. Hence all the heat from the fuel
would be transformed into work during the isothermal expansion, as required by Carnot's theorem.

For the idea to work a small mass of fuel would have to be burnt in a huge mass of air. Diesel first
proposed a working engine that would compress air to 250 atmospheres at 800 °C (1,450 °F), then cycle
to one atmosphere at 20 °C (50 °F). However, this was well beyond the technological capabilities of the
day, since it implied a compression ratio of 60:1. Such an engine, if it could have been built, would have
had an efficiency of 73%. (In contrast, the best steam engines of his day achieved 7%.)

Accordingly, Diesel sought to compromise. He calculated that, were he to reduce the peak pressure to a
less ambitious 90 atmospheres, he would sacrifice only 5% of the thermal efficiency. Seeking financial
support, he published the "Theory and Construction of a Rational Heat Engine to Take the Place of the
Steam Engine and All Presently Known Combustion Engines" (1893). Endorsed by scientific opinion,
including Lord Kelvin, he won the backing of Krupp and Maschinenfabrik Augsburg. He clung to the
Carnot cycle as a symbol. But years of practical work failed to achieve an isothermal combustion engine,
nor could have done, since it requires such an enormous quantity of air that it cannot develop enough
power to compress it. Furthermore, controlled fuel injection turned out to be no easy matter.

Even so, the Diesel engine slowly evolved over 25 years to become a practical high-compression air
engine, its fuel injected near the end of the compression stroke and ignited by the heat of compression,
capable by 1969 of 40% efficiency.[8]

As a macroscopic construct
The Carnot heat engine is, ultimately, a theoretical construct based on an idealized thermodynamic
system. On a practical human-scale level the Carnot cycle has proven a valuable model, as in advancing
the development of the diesel engine. However, on a macroscopic scale limitations placed by the model's
assumptions prove it impractical, and, ultimately, incapable of doing any work.[9] As such, per Carnot's
theorem, the Carnot engine may be thought as the theoretical limit of macroscopic scale heat engines
rather than any practical device that could ever be built.[10]

For example, for the isothermal expansion part of the Carnot cycle, the following infinitesimal conditions
must be satisfied simultaneously at every step in the expansion:[11]

The hot reservoir temperature TH is infinitesimally higher than the system gas temperature T
so heat flow (energy transfer) from the hot reservoir to the gas is made without increasing T
(via infinitesimal work on the surroundings by the gas as another energy transfer); if TH is
significantly higher than T, then T may be not uniform through the gas so the system would
deviate from thermal equilibrium as well as not being a reversible process (i.e. not a Carnot
cycle) or T might increase noticeably so it would not be an isothermal process.
The force externally applied on the piston (opposite to the internal force on the piston by the
gas) needs to be infinitesimally reduced externally. Without this assistance, it would not be
possible to follow a gas PV (Pressure-Volume) curve downward at a constant T since
following this curve means that the gas-to-piston force decreases (P decreases) as the
volume expands (the piston moves outward). If this assistance is so strong that the volume
expansion is significant, the system may deviate from thermal equilibrium, and the process
fail to be reversible (and thus not a Carnot cycle).
Such "infinitesimal" requirements as these (and others) cause the Carnot cycle to take an infinite amount
of time, rendering the production of work impossible.[9]

Other practical requirements that make the Carnot cycle impractical to realize include fine control of the
gas, and perfect thermal contact with the surroundings (including high and low temperature reservoirs).

Notes
1. Figure 1 in Carnot (1824, p. 17) and Carnot (1890, p. 63). In the diagram, the diameter of
the vessel is large enough to bridge the space between the two bodies, but in the model, the
vessel is never in contact with both bodies simultaneously. Also, the diagram shows an
unlabeled axial rod attached to the outside of the piston.
 2. In French, Carnot uses machine à feu, which Thurston translates as heat-engine or steam-
engine. In a footnote, Carnot distinguishes the steam-engine (machine à vapeur) from the
heat-engine in general. (Carnot, 1824, p. 5 and Carnot, 1890, p. 43)
3. "The Carnot Efficiency | EGEE 102: Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection" (htt
ps://www.e-education.psu.edu/egee102/node/1942). www.e-education.psu.edu. Retrieved
2022-01-24.
4. "Sometimes translated as Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat" (http://www.worldcat.or
g/search?q=ti%3AReflections+on+the+motive+power+of+heat+au%3Acarnot).
5. English translation by Thurston (Carnot, 1890, p. 51-52).
6. Planck, M. (1945). Treatise on Thermodynamics. Dover Publications. p. 90. "§90, eqs.(39) &
(40)"
7. Fermi, E. (1956). Thermodynamics. Dover Publications (still in print). p. 47. "below eq.(63)"
8. Bryant, Lynwood (August 1969). "Rudolf Diesel and His Rational Engine". Scientific
American. 221 (2): 108–117. Bibcode:1969SciAm.221b.108B (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.ed
u/abs/1969SciAm.221b.108B). doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0869-108 (https://doi.org/10.1
038%2Fscientificamerican0869-108). JSTOR 24926442 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/24926
442).
9. Liu, Hang; Meng, Xin-He (2017-08-18). "Effects of dark energy on the efficiency of charged
AdS black holes as heat engines" (https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-017-5134-9). The
European Physical Journal C. 77 (8): 556. arXiv:1704.04363 (https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.043
63). doi:10.1140/epjc/s10052-017-5134-9 (https://doi.org/10.1140%2Fepjc%2Fs10052-017-
5134-9). ISSN 1434-6052 (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/1434-6052). "...since the Carnot
heat engine, setting an upper bound on the efficiency of a heat engine is an ideal, reversible
engine of which a single cycle must be performed in infinite time which is impractical and so
the Carnot engine has zero power."
10. Benenti, Giuliano; Casati, Giulio; Wang, Jiao (2020). "Power, efficiency, and fluctuations in
steady-state heat engines" (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2007.08573.pdf) (PDF). Physical Review E.
102 (4). "However, fluctuations [in reservoir temperature] make impractical such engines."
11. D, Bob (2020-01-15). "In the isothermal expansion phase of a Carnot cycle, why does the
gas expand?" (https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/525217). StackExchange. Retrieved
2022-01-02.

External links
Episode 46. Engine of Nature: The Carnot engine, part one, beginning with simple steam engines (https://
m.youtube.com/watch?v=d6eJ8mccvu0&t=939). The Mechanical Universe. Caltech – via YouTube.

References
Bryant, Lynwood (August 1969). "Rudolf Diesel and His Rational Engine". Scientific
American. 221 (2): 108–117. Bibcode:1969SciAm.221b.108B (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.ed
u/abs/1969SciAm.221b.108B). doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0869-108 (https://doi.org/10.1
038%2Fscientificamerican0869-108). JSTOR 24926442 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/24926
442).
Carnot, Sadi (1824). Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu et sur les machines propres
à développer cette puissance (https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_QX9iIWF3yOMC) (in
French). Paris: Bachelier. (First Edition 1824 (https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_QX9iIWF3y
OMC)) and (Reissued Edition of 1878 (https://books.google.com/books?id=YcY9AAAAMAA
J))
 Carnot, Sadi (1890). Thurston, Robert Henry (ed.). Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat
and on Machines Fitted to Develop That Power (https://archive.org/stream/reflectionsonmot
00carnrich). New York: J. Wiley & Sons. (full text of 1897 ed. (https://books.google.com/boo
ks?id=tgdJAAAAIAAJ)) (Archived HTML version (https://web.archive.org/web/20120204034
518/http://www.history.rochester.edu/steam/carnot/1943/Section2.htm))

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