Maximum efficiency of steady-state heat engines at arbitrary power
Statistical Mechanics
2016-05-18 v3
Abstract
We discuss the efficiency of a heat engine operating in a nonequilibrium steady state maintained by two heat reservoirs. Within the general framework of linear irreversible thermodynamics we derive a universal upper bound on the efficiency of the engine operating at arbitrary fixed power. Furthermore, we show that a slight decrease of the power below its maximal value can lead to a significant gain in efficiency. The presented analysis yields the exact expression for this gain and the corresponding upper bound.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1603.02623,
title = {Maximum efficiency of steady-state heat engines at arbitrary power},
author = {Artem Ryabov and Viktor Holubec},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1603.02623},
year = {2016}
}