Lecture-6-The SECOND LAW of Thermodynamics
Lecture-6-The SECOND LAW of Thermodynamics
Lecture-6-The SECOND LAW of Thermodynamics
THERMODYNAMICS
Examples
• It is common experience that a cup of hot coffee left
in a cooler room eventually cools off . This process
satisfies the first law of thermodynamics since the
amount of energy lost by the coffee is equal to the
amount gained by the surrounding air. Now let us
consider the reverse process—the hot coffee getting
even hotter in a cooler room as a result of heat
transfer from the room air. What you think ???
• Work can be converted to heat directly and completely, but converting heat
to work requires the use of some special devices. These devices are called
heat engines.
• Heat engines differ considerably from one another, but all can be
characterized by the following
1. They receive heat from a high-temperature source (solar energy, oil furnace,
nuclear reactor, etc.).
2. They convert part of this heat to work (usually in the form of a rotating shaft).
3. They reject the remaining waste heat to a low-temperature sink (the atmosphere,
rivers, etc.).
4. They operate on a cycle.
• Heat engines and other cyclic devices usually involve a fluid to and from
which heat is transferred while undergoing a cycle. This fluid is called the
working fluid.
• The term heat engine is often used in a broader sense to include work
producing devices that do not operate in a thermodynamic cycle. Engines
that involve internal combustion such as gas turbines and car engines fall
into this category. These devices operate in a mechanical cycle but not in a
thermodynamic cycle since the working fluid (the combustion gases) does
not undergo a complete cycle. Instead of being cooled to the initial
temperature, the exhaust gases are purged and replaced by fresh air-and-
fuel mixture at the end of the cycle.
• The work-producing device that best fits into the definition of a heat engine is the
steam power plant, which is an external-combustion engine. That is, combustion
takes place outside the engine, and the thermal energy released during this
process is transferred to the steam as heat. The schematic of a basic steam power
plant
• Qin = amount of heat supplied to steam in boiler from a high-temperature
• source (furnace)
• Qout = amount of heat rejected from steam in condenser to a low temperature sink
(the atmosphere, a river, etc.)
• Wout = amount of work delivered by steam as it expands in turbine
• Win = amount of work required to compress water to boiler pressure
• Wnet, out = Wout – Win (kJ)
Thermal Efficiency
• The fraction of the heat input that is converted to net work output is
a measure of the performance of a heat engine and is called the
thermal efficiency ηth
• Only part of the heat transferred to the heat engine is converted to
work.
• For heat engines, the desired output is the net work output, and the
required input is the amount of heat supplied to the working fluid.
Then the thermal efficiency of a heat engine can be expressed as
• The thermal efficiencies of work-producing devices are relatively
low. Ordinary spark-ignition automobile engines have a thermal
efficiency of about 25 percent. This number is as high as 40 percent
for diesel engines and large gas-turbine plants and as high as 60
percent for large combined gas-steam power plants. Thus, even
with the most efficient heat engines available today, almost one-
half of the energy supplied ends up in the rivers, lakes, or the
atmosphere as waste or useless energy.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics:
Clausius Statement
For reversible heat engines, the heat transfer ratio in the above relation can
be replaced by the ratio of the absolute temperatures of the two reservoirs,
This relation is often referred to as the Carnot efficiency, since the Carnot
heat engine is the best known reversible engine. This is the highest efficiency
a heat engine operating between the two thermal energy reservoirs at
Temperatures TL and TH can have.
Thermodynamic temperature scale related to
heat transfer, Temp is in K
• All irreversible (i.e., actual) heat engines operating between these
temperature limits (TL and TH) have lower efficiencies. An actual heat engine
cannot reach this maximum theoretical efficiency value because it is
impossible to completely eliminate all the irreversibilities associated with
the actual cycle.
• The thermal efficiencies of actual and reversible heat engines operating
between the same temperature limits compare as follows
• Most work-producing devices (heat engines) in operation today
have efficiencies under 40 percent.
• The thermal efficiency of actual heat engines can be maximized by
supplying heat to the engine at the highest possible temperature
(limited by material strength) and rejecting heat from the engine at
the lowest possible temperature
THE CARNOT REFRIGERATOR
AND HEAT PUMP
• A refrigerator or a heat pump that operates on the reversed Carnot cycle is
called a Carnot refrigerator, or a Carnot heat pump. The coefficient of
performance of any refrigerator or heat pump, reversible or irreversible, is
given by