The Carnot Machine

We consider the standard Carnot-cycle machine, which can be thought of as having a

piston moving within a cylinder, and having the following characteristics:
A perfect seal, so that no atoms escape from the working fluid as the piston
moves to expand or compress it.
Perfect lubrication, so that there is no friction.
An ideal-gas for the working fluid.
Perfect thermal connection at any time either to one or to none of two
reservoirs, which are at two different temperatures, with perfect thermal
insulation isolating it from all other heat transfers.
The piston moves back and forth repeatedly, in a cycle of alternating
"isothermal" and "adiabatic" expansions and compressions, according to the PV
diagram shown below:

By definition, the isothermal segments (AB and CD) occur when there is perfect
thermal contact between the working fluid and one of the reservoirs, so that whatever
heat is needed to maintainconstant temperature will flow into or out of the working
fluid, from or to the reservoir.
By definition, the adiabatic segments (BC and DA) occur when there is perfect
thermal insulation between the working fluid and the rest of the universe, including
both reservoirs, thereby preventing the flow of any heat into or out of the working
fluid.
The isothermal curves (but not the adiabatic curves) are hyperbolas, according to PV
= nRT. The enclosed area (and therefore the mechanical work done) will depend on
the two temperatures ("height") and on the amount of heat transferred, which depends
in turn on the extent of the isothermal compression or expansion ("width"), during
which heat must be transferred to maintain the constant temperature.
We will denote the heat transferred to or from the high-temperature reservoir (during
the transition between points A and B) as Q
h
.
We will denote the heat transferred to or from the low-temperature reservoir (during
the transition between points C and D) as Q
c
.

Engine, Heat Pump, or Refrigerator
If a Carnot machine cycles around the path clockwise, a high-temperature isothermal
expansion from A to B, an adiabatic expansion cooling down from B to C, a low-
temperature isothermal compression from C to D, and finally an adiabatic
compression warming up from D to A, it functions as a heat engine, removing energy
from the high-temperature reservoir as heat, transforming a portion of that energy to
useful mechanical work (the enclosed area) done on the external world, and ejecting
the remainder of the energy as waste heat to the low-temperature reservoir.
If a Carnot machine is driven (by an external agency, such as a motor) around the
cycle counter clockwise, an adiabatic expansion cooling down from A to D, a low-
temperature isothermal expansion from D to C, an adiabatic compression warming up
from C to B, and finally a high temperature isothermal compression from B to A, then
it functions as either a refrigerator or a heat pump, depending on whether removing
heat from the low-temperature reservoir or adding heat to the high-temperature
reservoir is of primary interest. The mechanical energy required to force the machine
around the cycle is the work done on the machine, the area enclosed.

Efficiency
In general, the "efficiency" or "effectiveness" of a process is the ratio calculated by
dividing what you want to accomplish by what you have to pay to get it done. Hence,
a larger value is better.

Heat Engines
For a heat engine, the efficiency is the ratio of useful work performed to the
heat energy consumed from the high-temperature reservoir:

This ratio is the interesting one because you pay for the fuel to obtain Q
h
, in
order to get the benefit of the work done, W. For a Carnot engine, this is
entirely determined by the temperatures of the hot and cold reservoirs:

The efficiency depends on the ratio of the temperature difference between the
two reservoirs to the absolute temperature of the hot reservoir; alternatively, the
efficiency depends on the ratio of the absolute temperatures of the hot and cold
reservoirs.
This temperature dependence is a direct consequence of the second law of
thermodynamics and the fact that all heat transfers occur during isothermal
expansion and contraction, with no temperature difference between the heat
reservoir and the working fluid, so that the entropy gained by one exactly
matches the entropy lost by the other, with no net change in entropy for the
system as a whole. This condition is of course an ideal one, and cannot be met
in practice by any real machine. Thus, the Carnot efficiency is the best
possible even theoretically; all real machines will be strictly worse than this.
Another consequence of these calcuations is the following: in most practical
situations the cold temperature reservoir is essentially the ambient temperature;
therefore in order to improve efficiency, the high temperature must be
increased. In order to increase the boiling temperature of water, it is necessary
to increase the pressure. As a result, large-scale steam-based power installations
(whether fueled by coal, oil, natural gas, or nuclear energy) will routinely be
designed to operate at high temperatures and presssures, posing significant
challenges from mechanical, chemical, and metallurgical perspectives.

Refrigerators
For a Carnot machine functioning as a refrigerator, the "effectiveness" is the
ratio of the energy removed from the low-temperature reservoir to the work
required to force the machine around its cycle (the energy consumed and paid
for):

The effectiveness of a refrigerator is sometimes called the coefficient of
performance ("COP"). The effectiveness will be greater than 1 only if the
absolute temperature of the cold reservoir is warmer than half that of the hot
reservoir. We can see that refrigeration to extremely cold temperatures is very
difficult.

Heat Pumps
For a Carnot machine functioning as a heat pump, the "effectiveness" is the
ratio of the energy delivered to the high-temperature reservoir to the work
required to force the machine around its cycle (the energy consumed and paid
for):

The effectiveness of a heat pump is sometimes called the performance factor
("PF"). For heat pumps, the effectiveness is always greater than 1. Electrically
powered heat pumps can make economic sense only if the effectiveness of the
heat pump times the efficiency of the electrical generation and transmission
process exceeds 1. Otherwise, only part of the fuel burned to produce the
electricity would have to be burned to provide the heat needed. (Modern natural
gas furnaces can easily transfer more than 95% of the combustion heat to the
heated space.) As the temperature of the cold reservoir (the outside
temperature) declines, the effectiveness of the heat pump decreases toward 1.
Because large electrical generators and high-voltage transmission lines deliver
about one-third as much electical energy as the heat value of the fuel they
consume, as soon as the PF is less than about 3, it would be cheaper to burn the
original fuel directly for the heat, rather than generate electricity to operate a
heat pump. This limits the geographical regions where heat pumps make
economic sense.
The Carnot heat pump would reach this technical break-even point for heating
ordinary living spaces at an outside temperature of about -77 degrees Celsius (-
106 degrees Fahrenheit). The real, economic break-even, however, occurs at
appreciably warmer outside temperatures, because the real heat pumps do not
achieve Carnot effectiveness, and because they must save so much operating
fuel cost that they pay for their construction and installation.