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What is Carnot's ideal heat engine?
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Carnot's ideal heat engine is a theoretical thermodynamic cycle that provides an upper limit on the efficiency that any heat engine can achieve when operating between two heat reservoirs. It is a theoretical engine and cannot be built in practice, but it serves as a benchmark for real engines.
Here are the key aspects of Carnot's ideal heat engine:
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Reversible Processes: The cycle consists of four reversible processes:
- Isothermal Expansion: The working substance absorbs heat from a high-temperature reservoir and expands at a constant temperature.
- Adiabatic Expansion: The working substance expands further without any heat exchange with the surroundings, causing its temperature to drop.
- Isothermal Compression: The working substance releases heat to a low-temperature reservoir and is compressed at a constant temperature.
- Adiabatic Compression: The working substance is compressed further without any heat exchange, causing its temperature to rise back to the initial high temperature.
- Efficiency: The efficiency of a Carnot engine depends only on the temperatures of the hot and cold reservoirs and is given by the formula:
Efficiency = 1 - (Tcold / Thot)
- Where Tcold and Thot are the absolute temperatures (in Kelvin) of the cold and hot reservoirs, respectively.
- Maximum Efficiency: No heat engine operating between two given heat reservoirs can be more efficient than a Carnot engine operating between the same reservoirs.
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