Construct · 1 fields · 3 citations

Carnot cycle: a standalone construct

One name. One construct. A landmark on the map.

● anchor · a standalone construct Nearest construct by meaningreversibilitycompare the meanings
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Carnotcycle1 CONSTRUCTCarnot cycleCARNOT · MAX EFFICIENCY

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Thermodynamics

The idealized reversible heat-engine cycle that sets the maximum possible efficiency

Sadi Carnot introduced the idea in his 1824 essay Reflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu, reasoning about the greatest amount of work a heat engine could draw from the flow of heat between a hot body and a cold body. Rudolf Clausius (1850) and William Thomson (Lord Kelvin, 1851) later placed the argument on the footing of the emerging science of thermodynamics, and the cycle came to be described as a sequence of four reversible steps operating between two reservoirs held at fixed temperatures: the working substance absorbs heat while its temperature stays constant, then cools without exchanging heat, then releases heat at the lower constant temperature, then warms back without exchanging heat, returning to its starting state. Because every step is imagined as perfectly reversible, with no friction and no heat lost to unwanted temperature differences, the Carnot cycle marks the theoretical ceiling on efficiency for any engine running between the same two temperatures. Its distinctive feature is that this ceiling depends only on the two reservoir temperatures and not on the working substance or the machine, giving thermodynamics a universal upper bound against which every real engine can be compared.[1][2][3]

Unit
A four-step reversible thermodynamic cycle (two constant-temperature steps and two heat-isolated steps) operating between two heat reservoirs
Recovery means
Not applicable
Measured by
Its efficiency is computed as one minus the ratio of the cold reservoir's absolute temperature to the hot reservoir's absolute temperature (1 minus T_cold divided by T_hot); real engines are rated against this bound

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Nearby constructs

efficiency4 fields · 5 citationsjingle · one word, four constructsentropy6 fields · 12 citationsjingle · one name, six constructsreversibility3 fields · 6 citationsjingle · one word, three constructs

References

  1. Carnot, S. (1824). Reflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu et sur les machines propres a developper cette puissance. Bachelier.
  2. Clausius, R. (1850). Ueber die bewegende Kraft der Warme und die Gesetze, welche sich daraus fur die Warmelehre selbst ableiten lassen. Annalen der Physik, 155(3), 368–397. https://doi.org/10.1002/andp.18501550306
  3. Thomson, W. (1851). On the dynamical theory of heat, with numerical results deduced from Mr Joule's equivalent of a thermal unit, and M. Regnault's observations on steam. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 20(2), 261–288.

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