Work Output and Efficiency at Maximum Power of Linear Irreversible Heat Engines Operating with a Finite-Sized Heat Source

2013/10/31 by Yuki Izumida, Koji Okuda
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.stat-mech

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.112.180603

5 pages, 1 figure

arxiv created 2014/05/02 · arxiv updated 2015/06/17

Abstract

We formulate the work output and efficiency for linear irreversible heat engines working between a finite-sized hot heat source and an infinite-sized cold heat reservoir until the total system reaches the final thermal equilibrium state with a uniform temperature. We prove that when the heat engines operate at the maximum power under the tight-coupling condition without heat leakage the work output is just half of the exergy, which is known as the maximum available work extracted from a heat source. As a consequence, the corresponding efficiency is also half of its quasistatic counterpart.

Cited by

• Optimizing low-dissipation Carnot-like thermal devices with heat leak