Carnot cycle

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A Carnot cycle is a theoretical ideal thermodynamic cycle proposed by French physicist Sadi Carnot in 1824 and expanded upon by others in the 1830s and 1840s. It provides an upper limit on the efficiency that any classical thermodynamic engine can achieve during the conversion of heat into work, or conversely, the efficiency of a refrigeration system in creating a temperature difference by the application of work to the system. It is not an actual thermodynamic cycle but is a theoretical construct. There are practical thermodynamic cycles such as a Rankine cycle but no one can get the efficiency equal or higher than the Carnot cycle efficiency, by the Carnot's theorem.

Every single thermodynamic system exists in a particular state. When a system is taken through a series of different states and finally returned to its initial state, a thermodynamic cycle is said to have occurred. In the process of going through this cycle, the system may perform work on its surroundings, for example by moving a piston, thereby acting as a heat engine. A system undergoing a Carnot cycle is called a Carnot heat engine, although such a "perfect" engine is only a theoretical construct and cannot be built in practice.^[1] However, a microscopic Carnot heat engine has been designed and run.^[2]

Essentially, there are two "heat reservoirs" forming part of the heat engine at temperatures ${\displaystyle T_{H}}$ and ${\displaystyle T_{C}}$ (hot and cold respectively). They have such large thermal capacity that their temperatures are practically unaffected by a single cycle. Since the cycle is theoretically reversible, there is no generation of entropy during the cycle; entropy is conserved. During the cycle, an arbitrary amount of entropy ${\displaystyle \Delta S}$ is extracted from the hot reservoir, and deposited in the cold reservoir. Since there is no volume change in either reservoir, they do no work, and during the cycle, an amount of heat energy ${\displaystyle T_{H}\Delta S}$ is extracted from the hot reservoir and a smaller amount of waste heat ${\displaystyle -T_{C}\Delta S}$ is given off into the cold reservoir. The net energy ${\displaystyle (T_{H}-T_{C})\Delta S}$ is equal to the work done by the engine per cycle.

Carnot heat engine as an impractical macroscopic construct[]

A Carnot heat engine is a heat engine performing a Carnot cycle, and its realizations in a macroscopic scale is impractical. For example, for isothermal expansion as a part of the Carnot cycle, the following conditions are required to be satisfied simultaneously at every step in the expansion to realize it.^[3]

• The hot reservoir temperature T_H 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 T_H is significantly higher than T, then T may be not uniform through the gas so the system is deviated from the thermal equilibrium as well as a reversible process (no more Carnot cycle) or T may increase noticeably so it is no more 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 somehow. Without this external assistance, following a gas PV (Pressure-Volume) curve downwardly at a constant T is not possible since following this curve means that the gas-to-piston force decreases (P decrease) as the surroundings expands (the piston moving outwardly). If this assistance is strong so that surroundings expansion is significant, then the system may be deviated from the thermal equilibrium as well as the reversible process (no more Carnot cycle).

These (and other) "infinitesimal" requirements makes the Carnot cycle to be performed over an infinite amount of time. There are other practical requirements that make the Carnot cycle hard to be realised (e.g., fine control of gas thermal contact with the surroundings including high and low temperature reservoirs), so the Carnot engine should be thought as a theoretical limit of macroscopic scale heat engines rather than a practical achievement goal.

Stages[]

A Carnot cycle as an idealized thermodynamic cycle performed by a heat engine (Carnot heat engine) consists of the following steps.

Figure 1: A Carnot cycle illustrated on a PV diagram to illustrate the work done. 1-to-2 (isothermal expansion), 2-to-3 (isentropic expansion), 3-to-4 (isothermal compression), 4-to-1 (isentropic compression).

In this case, since it is a reversible thermodynamic cycle (no net change in the system and its surroundings per cycle)^[5][4]

${\displaystyle \Delta S_{H}+\Delta S_{C}=\Delta S_{cycle}=0}$,

or,

${\displaystyle Q_{H}/T_{H}=-Q_{C}/T_{C}}$.

This is true as ${\displaystyle Q_{C}}$ and ${\displaystyle T_{C}}$ are both smaller in magnitude and in fact are in the same ratio as ${\displaystyle Q_{H}/T_{H}}$.

The pressure–volume graph[]

When a Carnot cycle is plotted on a pressure–volume diagram (Figure 1), the isothermal stages follow the isotherm lines for the working fluid, the adiabatic stages move between isotherms, and the area bounded by the complete cycle path represents the total work that can be done during one cycle. From point 1 to 2 and point 3 to 4 the temperature is constant (isothermal process). Heat transfer from point 4 to 1 and point 2 to 3 are equal to zero (adiabatic process).

Properties and significance[]

The temperature–entropy diagram[]

Figure 2: A Carnot cycle as an idealized thermodynamic cycle performed by a heat engine (Carnot heat engine), illustrated on a TS (temperature T–entropy S) diagram. The cycle takes place between a hot reservoir at temperature T_H and a cold reservoir at temperature T_C. The vertical axis is the system temperature, the horizontal axis is the system entropy. A-to-B (isothermal expansion), B-to-C (isentropic expansion), C-to-D (isothermal compression), D-to-A (isentropic compression).

Figure 3: A generalized thermodynamic cycle taking place between a hot reservoir at temperature T_H and a cold reservoir at temperature T_C. By the second law of thermodynamics, the cycle cannot extend outside the temperature band from T_C to T_H. The area in red, |Q_C|, is the amount of energy exchanged between the system and the cold reservoir. The area in white, W, is the amount of work energy exchanged by the system with its surroundings. The amount of heat exchanged with the hot reservoir is the sum of the two. If the system is behaving as an engine, the process moves clockwise around the loop, and moves counter-clockwise if it is behaving as a refrigerator. The efficiency to the cycle is the ratio of the white area (work) divided by the sum of the white and red areas (heat absorbed from the hot reservoir).

The behavior of a Carnot engine or refrigerator is best understood by using a temperature–entropy diagram (T–S diagram), in which the thermodynamic state is specified by a point on a graph with entropy (S) as the horizontal axis and temperature (T) as the vertical axis (Figure 2). For a simple closed system (control mass analysis), any point on the graph represents a particular state of the system. A thermodynamic process is represented by a curve connecting an initial state (A) and a final state (B). The area under the curve is:

${\displaystyle Q=\int _{A}^{B}dQ=\int _{A}^{B}T\,dS}$

(1)

which is the amount of thermal energy (heat) transferred in the process. If the process moves to greater entropy (e.g., moving from a lesser entropy point A to a greater entropy point B in the integral above), the area under the curve is the amount of heat absorbed by the system in that process. If the process moves towards lesser entropy, it is the amount of heat removed or leaving from the system. For any cyclic process, there is an upper portion of the cycle and a lower portion. In T-S diagrams for a clockwise cycle, the area under the upper portion will be the thermal energy absorbed by the system during the cycle, while the area under the lower portion will be the thermal energy removed from the system during the cycle. The area inside the cycle is then the difference between the two (the absorbed net heat energy), but since the internal energy of the system must have returned to its initial value, this difference must be the amount of work done by the system per cycle. Referring to Figure 1, mathematically, for a reversible process, we may write the amount of work done over a cyclic process as:

${\displaystyle W=\oint PdV=\oint (dQ-dU)=\oint (TdS-dU)=\oint TdS-\oint dU=\oint TdS}$

(2)

Since dU is an exact differential, its integral over any closed loop is zero and it follows that the area inside the loop on a T–S diagram is equal to the total work performed by the system on the surroundings if the loop is traversed in a clockwise direction, and is equal to the total work done on the system by the surroundings as the loop is traversed in a counterclockwise direction.

Figure 4: A Carnot cycle taking place between a hot reservoir at temperature T_H and a cold reservoir at temperature T_C.

The Carnot cycle[]

Figure 5: A visualization of a Carnot cycle

Evaluation of the above integral is particularly simple for a Carnot cycle. The amount of energy transferred as work is

${\displaystyle W=\oint PdV=\oint TdS=(T_{H}-T_{C})(S_{B}-S_{A})}$

The total amount of thermal energy (heat) transferred from the hot reservoir to the system (in the isothermal expansion) will be

${\displaystyle Q_{H}=T_{H}(S_{B}-S_{A})=T_{H}\Delta S_{H}\,}$

and the total amount of thermal energy (heat) transferred from the system to the cold reservoir (in the isothermal compression) will be

${\displaystyle Q_{C}=T_{C}(S_{A}-S_{B})=T_{C}\Delta S_{C}<0\,}$

Due to energy conservation, the net heat transferred, ${\displaystyle Q}$, is equal to the work performed^[4]

${\displaystyle W=Q=Q_{H}+Q_{C}\,}$

The efficiency ${\displaystyle \eta }$ is defined to be:

${\displaystyle \eta ={\frac {W}{Q_{H}}}={\frac {Q_{H}+Q_{C}}{Q_{H}}}=1-{\frac {T_{C}}{T_{H}}}\quad \quad \quad \quad \quad \quad \quad \quad }$

(3)

where

W is the work done by the system (energy exiting the system as work),

${\displaystyle Q_{C}}$ < 0 is the heat taken from the system (heat energy leaving the system),

${\displaystyle Q_{H}}$ > 0 is the heat put into the system (heat energy entering the system),

${\displaystyle T_{C}}$ is the absolute temperature of the cold reservoir, and

${\displaystyle T_{H}}$ is the absolute temperature of the hot reservoir.

${\displaystyle S_{B}}$ is the maximum system entropy

${\displaystyle S_{A}}$ is the minimum system entropy

This is the Carnot heat engine working efficiency definition as the fraction of the work done by the system to the thermal energy received by the system from the hot reservoir per cycle. This thermal energy is the cycle initiator.

Reversed Carnot cycle[]

A Carnot heat-engine cycle described is a totally reversible cycle. That is, all the processes that compose it can be reversed, in which case it becomes the Carnot heat pump and refrigeration cycle. This time, the cycle remains exactly the same except that the directions of any heat and work interactions are reversed. Heat is absorbed from the low-temperature reservoir, heat is rejected to a high-temperature reservoir, and a work input is required to accomplish all this. The P–V diagram of the reversed Carnot cycle is the same as for the Carnot heat-engine cycle except that the directions of the processes are reversed.^[6]

Carnot's theorem[]

It can be seen from the above diagram that for any cycle operating between temperatures ${\displaystyle T_{H}}$ and ${\displaystyle T_{C}}$, none can exceed the efficiency of a Carnot cycle.

Figure 6: A real engine (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). Irreversible systems and losses of energy (for example, work due to friction and heat losses) prevent the ideal from taking place at every step.

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 those same reservoirs. Thus, Equation 3 gives the maximum efficiency possible for any engine using the corresponding temperatures. A corollary to Carnot's theorem states that: All reversible engines operating between the same heat reservoirs are equally efficient. Rearranging the right side of the equation gives what may be a more easily understood form of the equation, namely that the theoretical maximum efficiency of a heat engine equals the difference in temperature between the hot and cold reservoir divided by the absolute temperature of the hot reservoir. Looking at this formula an interesting fact becomes apparent: Lowering the temperature of the cold reservoir will have more effect on the ceiling efficiency of a heat engine than raising the temperature of the hot reservoir by the same amount. In the real world, this may be difficult to achieve since the cold reservoir is often an existing ambient temperature.

In other words, the maximum efficiency is achieved if and only if entropy does not change per cycle. A entropy change per cycle is made, for example, if there is friction leading to dissipation of work into heat. In that case, the cycle is not reversible and the Clausius theorem becomes an inequality rather than an equality. Otherwise, since entropy is a state function, the required dumping of heat into the environment to dispose of excess entropy leads to a (minimal) reduction in efficiency. So Equation 3 gives the efficiency of any reversible heat engine.

In mesoscopic heat engines, work per cycle of operation in general fluctuates due to thermal noise. If the cycle is performed quasi-statically, the fluctuations vanish even on the mesoscale.^[7] However, if the cycle is performed faster than the relaxation time of the working medium, the fluctuations of work are inevitable. Nevertheless, when work and heat fluctuations are counted, an exact equality relates the exponential average of work performed by any heat engine to the heat transfer from the hotter heat bath.^[8]

Efficiency of real heat engines[]

Carnot realized that in reality it is not possible to build a thermodynamically reversible engine, so real heat engines are even less efficient than indicated by Equation 3. In addition, real engines that operate along the Carnot cycle style (isothermal expansion / isentropic expansion / isothermal compression / isentropic compression) are rare. Nevertheless, Equation 3 is extremely useful for determining the maximum efficiency that could ever be expected for a given set of thermal reservoirs.

Although Carnot's cycle is an idealization, Equation 3 as the expression of the Carnot efficiency is still useful. Consider the average temperatures,

${\displaystyle \langle T_{H}\rangle ={\frac {1}{\Delta S}}\int _{Q_{in}}TdS}$

${\displaystyle \langle T_{C}\rangle ={\frac {1}{\Delta S}}\int _{Q_{out}}TdS}$

at which the first integral is over a part of a cycle where heat goes into the system and the second integral is over a cycle part where heat goes out from the system. Then, replace T_H and T_C in Equation 3 by ⟨T_H⟩ and ⟨T_C⟩, respectively, to estimate the efficiency a heat engine.

For the Carnot cycle, or its equivalent, the average value ⟨T_H⟩ will equal the highest temperature available, namely T_H, and ⟨T_C⟩ the lowest, namely T_C. For other less efficient thermodynamic cycles, ⟨T_H⟩ will be lower than T_H, and ⟨T_C⟩ will be higher than T_C. This can help illustrate, for example, why a reheater or a regenerator can improve the thermal efficiency of steam power plants and why the thermal efficiency of combined-cycle power plants (which incorporate gas turbines operating at even higher temperatures) exceeds that of conventional steam plants. The first prototype of the diesel engine was based on the Carnot cycle.

See also[]

• Carnot heat engine
• Reversible process (thermodynamics)

References[]

Notes

Sources

• Carnot, Sadi, Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire
• Ewing, J. A. (1910) The Steam-Engine and Other Engines edition 3, page 62, via Internet Archive
• Feynman, Richard P.; Leighton, Robert B.; Sands, Matthew (1963). The Feynman Lectures on Physics. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. pp. Chapter 44. ISBN 978-0-201-02116-5.
• Halliday, David; Resnick, Robert (1978). Physics (3rd ed.). John Wiley & Sons. pp. 541–548. ISBN 978-0-471-02456-9.
• Kittel, Charles; Kroemer, Herbert (1980). Thermal Physics (2nd ed.). W. H. Freeman Company. ISBN 978-0-7167-1088-2.
• Kostic, M (2011). "Revisiting The Second Law of Energy Degradation and Entropy Generation: From Sadi Carnot's Ingenious Reasoning to Holistic Generalization". AIP Conf. Proc. AIP Conference Proceedings. 1411 (1): 327–350. Bibcode:2011AIPC.1411..327K. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.405.1945. doi:10.1063/1.3665247. American Institute of Physics, 2011. ISBN 978-0-7354-0985-9. Abstract at: [1]. Full article (24 pages [2]), also at [3].

External links[]

• Hyperphysics article on the Carnot cycle.
• Interactive Java applet showing behavior of a Carnot engine.
• S. M. Blinder Carnot Cycle on Ideal Gas powered by Wolfram Mathematica