Carnot Cycle In the 19th century, Nicolas L. Sadi Carnot made statement concerning the efficiency of engines.

He declared that the term "perfectly efficient heat engine" could not be applied to any heat engine. He believed that an engine in which all heat would be converted to mechanical work did not exist. Carnot also believed that the efficiency of a heat engine depended on the difference between the highest and lowest temperature reached in one cycle. That is, in mathematical terms, E = (T1 T3) / T1. The difference of the temperatures is directly proportional to the efficiency of the heat engine. This conception was proved with his thermodynamic cycle (thermodynamic processes that after numerous stages return a system to its initial state) known as the Carnot cycle, which is the basis cycle of all heat engines. This idea is also presented in the second law of thermodynamics stating that there is a limit, less than a hundred percent, in the efficiency of engines. Carnot Engine: Does it really exist? In reality, the Carnot engine doesnt exist. It is only an ideal engine, which means that the efficiency of this engine is 100% and all heat are converted to mechanical work. Thus, there is no heat loss and no waste of energy. Applications of the Carnot Engine The Carnot Cycle forms the perfect process of a heat engine. Many engineers tried to reach this kind of cycle. Rudolf Diesel had the most success and his engine, the diesel engine, is nearly as perfect as the Carnot engine. Other engines that perform this process are the Stirling engine (invented by Robert Stirling in 1816) the Otto engine (built by Nikolaus August Otto in 1876), and the steam engine. A diesel engine (also known as a compression-ignition engine) is an internal combustion engine that uses the heat of compression to initiate ignition to burn the fuel, which is injected into the combustion chamber during the final stage of compression. This is in contrast to sparkignition engines such as a petrol engine (gasoline engine) or gas engine (using a gaseous fuel as opposed to gasoline), which uses a spark plug to ignite an air-fuel mixture. The diesel engine is modeled on the Diesel cycle. The engine and thermodynamic cycle were both developed by Rudolf Diesel in 1897. A Stirling engine is a heat engine operating by cyclic compression and expansion of air or other gas, the working fluid, at different temperature levels such that there is a net conversion of heat to mechanical work. Like the steam engine, the Stirling engine is traditionally classified as an external combustion engine, as all heat transfers to and from the working fluid take place through the engine wall. This contrasts with an internal combustion engine where heat input is by combustion of a fuel within the body of the working fluid. Unlike a steam engine's (or more generally a Rankine cycle engine's) usage of a working fluid in both its liquid and gaseous phases, the Stirling engine encloses a fixed quantity of permanently gaseous fluid such as air. The Otto engine was a large stationary single-cylinder internal combustion four-stroke engine designed by Nikolaus Otto. It was a low-RPM machine, and only fired every other stroke due to the Otto cycle, also designed by Otto. It is also one of the first engines to use a spark plug, which is a device that produces a small electric spark to ignite the fuel charge. Otto engines were equipped with a number of different mechanism designs to trigger sparking. This usually consisted of a pivoting trip-arm that briefly grabs a power switch lever and gives it a quick pull. The switch lever is then released and allowed to snap back to its original position in preparation for the next cycle. This system requires an external electric battery, ignition coil, and electric charging system similar to modern automobile engines. A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. Steam engines are typically external combustion engines, although other external sources of heat such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be used. The heat cycle is known as the Rankine cycle. In general usage, the term 'steam engine' can refer to integrated steam plants such as railway steam locomotives and portable engines, or may refer to the machinery alone, as in the beam engine and stationary steam engine. Specialized devices such as steam hammers and steam pile drivers are dependent on steam supplied from a separate boiler. References: http://library.thinkquest.org/C006011/english/sites/thermo3.php3?v=2 http://www.howstuffworks.com/stirling-engine.htm http://library.thinkquest.org/C006011/english/sites/diesel.php3?v=2 http://library.thinkquest.org/C006011/english/sites/ottomotor.php3?v=2

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