Labs / Physics
Heat Engine Cycle
Press Run to push the gas around a four-stage cycle: squeeze it cold, heat it up, let it expand hot, then cool it back down. The loop traced on the pressure–volume chart encloses an area, and that area is exactly the net work the engine delivers each cycle. Nudge the reservoir temperatures and the compression ratio to see how much work you can wring out.
Stage Isothermal compressionT 300 KW 3.00 kJη 31% / Carnot 46%
What to try
- Widen the gap between the hot and cold temperatures. Does the loop grow, and does the efficiency climb toward the Carnot limit?
- Slide the cold reservoir up until it nearly meets the hot one. What happens to the work when there's hardly any temperature difference?
- Crank the compression ratio to 8×. How does squeezing the gas harder change the shape and area of the PV loop?
- Why does the real efficiency always sit below the Carnot number, no matter how you set the sliders?
- Use Step to freeze on each corner. Which two stages take heat in from the hot source, and which two dump heat to the cold sink?