Heat engine

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A heat engine is a physical or theoretical device that converts thermal energy to mechanical output. The mechanical output is called work, and the thermal energy input is called heat.

Heat engines typically run on a specific thermodynamic cycle. Heat engines are often named after the thermodynamic cycle they are modeled by. They often pick up alternate names, such as gasoline/petrol, turbine, or steam engines. Heat engines can generate heat inside the engine itself or it can absorb heat from an external source. Heat engines can be open to the atmospheric air or sealed and closed off to the outside (Open or closed cycle).

In engineering and thermodynamics, a heat engine performs the conversion of heat energy to mechanical work by exploiting the temperature gradient between a hot "source" and a cold "sink". Heat is transferred from the source, through the "working body" of the engine, to the sink, and in this process some of the heat is converted into work by exploiting the properties of a working substance (usually a gas or liquid).

Figure 1: Heat engine diagram

1 Overview
2 Everyday examples
3 References
4 See also
5 Other websites

[change] Overview

Heat engines are often confused with the cycles they attempt to mimic. Typically when describing the physical device the term 'engine' is used. When describing the model the term 'cycle' is used. One could say that the thermodynamic cycle is an ideal case of the mechanical engine. One could equally say that the model does not quite perfectly match the mechanical engine. However, much benefit is gained from the simplified models, and ideal cases they may represent.

In general terms, the larger the difference in temperature between the hot source and the cold sink, the larger is the potential thermal efficiency of the cycle. On Earth, the cold side of any heat engine is limited to close to the ambient temperature of the environment, or not much lower than 300 kelvins, so most efforts to improve the thermodynamic efficiencies of various heat engines focus on increasing the temperature of the source, within material limits.

The efficiency of various heat engines proposed or used today ranges from 3 percent ^[1](97 percent waste heat) for the OTEC ocean power proposal through 25 percent for most automotive engines, to 45 percent for a supercritical coal plant, to about 60 percent for a steam-cooled combined cycle gas turbine. All of these processes gain their efficiency (or lack thereof) due to the temperature drop across them.

OTEC uses the temperature difference of ocean water on the surface and ocean water from the depths, a small difference of perhaps 25 degrees Celsius, and so the efficiency must be low. The combined cycle gas turbines use natural-gas fired burners to heat air to near 1530 degrees Celsius, a difference of a large 1500 degrees Celsius, and so the efficiency can be large when the steam-cooling cycle is added in. ^[2]

[change] Everyday examples

Examples of everyday heat engines include: the steam engine, the diesel engine, and the gasoline (petrol) engine in an automobile. A common toy that is also a heat engine is a drinking bird. All of these familiar heat engines are powered by the expansion of heated gases. The general surroundings are the heat sink, providing relatively cool gases which, when heated, expand rapidly to drive the mechanical motion of the engine.

[change] References

Kroemer, Herbert; Kittel, Charles (1980). Thermal Physics, 2nd ed., W. H. Freeman Company. ISBN 0-7167-1088-9.
Callen, Herbert B. (1985). Thermodynamics and an Introduction to Thermostatistics, 2nd ed., John Wiley & Sons, Inc.. ISBN 0-471-86256-8.