Action and Entropy in Heat Engines: An Action Revision of the Carnot Cycle.

ABSTRACT: Despite the remarkable success of Carnot's heat engine cycle in founding the discipline of thermodynamics two centuries ago, false viewpoints of his use of the caloric theory in the cycle linger, limiting his legacy. An action revision of the Carnot cycle can correct this, showing that the heat flow powering external mechanical work is compensated internally with configurational changes in the thermodynamic or Gibbs potential of the working fluid, differing in each stage of the cycle quantified by Carnot as caloric. Action (@) is a property of state having the same physical dimensions as angular momentum (mrv = mr2ω). However, this property is scalar rather than vectorial, including a dimensionless phase angle (@ = mr2ωδφ). We have recently confirmed with atmospheric gases that their entro

SUBMITTER: Kennedy IR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8304742 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature