2021/12/31 by Zhuolin Ye, Viktor Holubec
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.105.024139
published as Phys. Rev. E 105, 024139 (2022)
arxiv created 2022/02/10 · arxiv updated 2022/02/28
We derive an analytical expression for maximum efficiency at fixed power of heat pumps operating along a finite-time reverse Carnot cycle under the low-dissipation assumption. The result is cumbersome, but it implies simple formulas for tight upper and lower bounds on the maximum efficiency and various analytically tractable approximations. In general, our results qualitatively agree with those obtained earlier for endoreversible heat pumps. In fact, we identify a special parameter regime when the performance of the low-dissipation and endoreversible devices is the same. At maximum power, heat pumps operate as work to heat converters with efficiency 1. Expressions for maximum efficiency at given power can be helpful in the identification of more practical operation regimes.