Energy Vol. 17, No. 12, PP. 1173-1178,1992 0360-5442/92 $5.00+ 0.

00
Printed in Great Britain Pergamon Press Ltd

FINITE-TIME THERMODYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF A

CARNOT ENGINE WITH INTERNAL IRREVERSIBILITY
CHIH Wut and ROBERT L. KIANG$
t Department of Mechanical Engineering, U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD 21402 and
$ Annapolis Detachment, Carderock Division, U.S. Naval Surface Warfare Center, Annapolis,
MD 21402, U.S.A.

(Received 3 March 1992)

Abstract-This paper extends Curzon and Ahlbom’s result which gives a thermodynamic
efficiency of an endoreversible Camot engine. It is shown that the internal irreversibilities
of a Camot engine can be characterized by a single parameter representing the ratio of two
entropy differences. Named the cycle irreversibility parameter, the presence of this
parameter in the equations for maximum power and efficiency clearly shows that an engine
with internal irreversibilities delivers less power and has a lower efficiency than an
endoreversible engine.

INTRODUCTION

The Carnot engine proposed in 1824 operates on reversible principles. As a consequence, this
hypothetical engine produces the maximum possible work for a given heat source and sink but
generates zero power because it has to operate at an infinitely slow pace. Its thermodynamic
efficiency, which has long been used as the standard against which all real engine efficiencies
are measured, is unrealistically high. Not until 1975 did Curzon and Ahlborn’ pioneer an
analysis that accounts for the irreversibility of finite-time heat transfer to and from the engine.
Such an endoreversible engine can generate useful power. Because of external irreversibilities,
its efficiency at maximum power output is less than that of the Carnot efficiency. The Curzon
and Ahlborn efficiency is referred to as the finite-time thermodynamic efficiency.
The Curzon and Ahlborn engine does not allow for any internal irreversibility. An attempt
to incorporate internal irreversibility in the finite-time analysis has been made by Gordon*
when he analysed the power vs efficiency relationship of a thermoelectric generator. In this
paper, we extend Curzon and Ahlborn’s analysis to include internal irreversibilities in a general
way, namely, as entropy generations. It is shown for a Carnot cycle that the effect of internal
irreversibilities can be characterized by a single parameter as far as the power output and the
cycle efficiency are concerned. We name this parameter the cycle irreversibility parameter.

THE ENDOREVERSIBLE CARNOT CYCLE

The T-S diagram of an endoreversible Carnot cycle is shown in Fig. 1. The cycle operates
between a heat source of temperature TH and a heat sink of temperature TL. Unlike the
classical Carnot engine, the isothermal heat addition process 2-3 takes place at Tw which is
lower than TH. The finite difference between TH and Tw allows a finite rate of heat transfer.
Similarly, T,-T, allows a finite rate of heat rejection from the engine to the external heat sink.
As far as the cycle itself is concerned, the two isothermal and the two adiabatic processes are
internally reversible.
As a slight deviation from the classical cycle analysis, we consider the four processes taking
place simultaneously rather than sequentially. Thus we allow the working medium to flow
through the Carnot engine in a steady-state fashion, which is analogous to a gas turbine engine
in which the four processes of a Brayton cycle take place in different parts of the engine but
1173
1174 CHIH WV and ROBERTL. KIANG

S
Fig. 1. Endoreversible Camot cycle.

simultaneously. Such a steady-state, endoreversible Carnot engine is schematically shown in

Fig. 2. As seen in Fig. 2, the heat input to and the heat rejected by the engine are, respectively,

QH= &IGI - Tw), (1)

& = KdT, - &_I, (2)

Qn
t

Reversible engine

t
I I

1 IKL
iL

Fig. 2. Steady-state Carnot engine

 Internal irreversibilities of a Carnot engine 1175

where KH is the thermal conductance between TH and T,; KL is the thermal conductance
between Tc and TL. The power delivered by the engine according to the first law is

P=&-&. (3)
Substituting Eqs. (1) and (2) into Eq. (3),
P = KH( TH - T,) - I&( Tc - TL). (4)

The second law requires that

&/Tw = &IT,. (5)

Upon replacing the two Q terms with Eqs. (1) and (2), Eq. (5) can be regarded as a
constraint on the four temperatures. If one considers TH and TL as given, then only Tw (or Tc)
in Eq. (4) remains an independent parameter. Power can be maximized by taking

aPIaT,=o. (6)
The maximum power thus obtained is given by

p =K K m-~L~2 (7)
max
H L K,+K, *

The cycle efficiency at maximum power is easily obtained as

r,C-A = P,,,a& = 1 -m. (8)

Our analysis follows closely that of Bejan. The efficiency in Eq. (8) is the Curzon and
Ahlborn efficiency for an endoreversible Carnot engine. The classical Carnot efficiency is, of
course,

V&not = 1 - TL/TH. (9)

Comparing Eq. (8) with Eq. (9), it is seen that for given TH and TL the Curzon and Ahlborn
efficiency is less than the Carnot efficiency. The difference is due to the external
irreversibilities associated with heat transfer across finite temperature differences.

INTERNAL IRREVERSIBILITIES

If internal irreversibility such as friction is accounted for in the Camot engine, then the two
isentropic processes become adiabatic processes with entropy generations. On a T-S diagram,
the four processes of such an engine constitute the cycle l-2’-3-4’ shown in Fig. 3. While the
heat absorbed by the reversible Carnot engine is

& = 7k.03 - ST), (10)

the heat absorbed by the irreversible engine is

Q;, = Tty(S3 - S;). (11)

Since &< S;, e;I < & (primes are added to quantities associated with the irreversible
engine). One can define an irreversible heat-input parameter C1 such that

Q!t, = CL?!, with C1 = (S, - Si)/(S, - $) < 1. (12)

Similarly, an irreversible heat-rejection parameter C2 may be defined as

8; = C2OL with C2 = (S; - &)I(& - S,) > 1. (13)

Assuming that this irreversible engine operates between the same source and sink
temperatures and that the thermal conductances remain the same, the first law again gives the
1176 CHIH WV and ROBERT L. KIANG

TH -

T;v - \
I \
\
: \
\
I \
T \
/ \
\
: \
\
: \
I ,
T'c -
1 I. 4 4’
Q;
TL

t
S

Fig. 3. Carnot cycle with internal irreversibilities.

power output of the engine:

P’ = & - & = K&u - T&) - KL(T;3 - T,). (14)
Formally, the second law requires

(1%
One can rewrite the inequality in Eq. (15) as
f&/T;N=R,,((i~lT3
with RAs< 1. (16)
With the above definition, RAsbecomes

(17)

As is seen in Eq. (17), RAsrepresents the ratio of two entropy differences (hence the notation
used by us). For the Carnot cycle, R Ascharacterizes fully the degree of internal irreversibility.
We shall name it the cycle-irreversibility parameter.
Similar to the endoreversible Carnot engine, the power output of the internally irreversible
Carnot engine, Eq. (14), is a function of Tk and T& (assuming TH and TL are fixed). The
second law, Eq. (16), again represents a constraint between Th and T& T& can thus be solved
in terms of Th as follows:

With Eq. (18), the power can be maximized by taking the partial derivative
awaTk = 0.
The result is the optimum value of Tk,i.e.
K&%r + K,m
(G&t = ( VE.
KH+ RASKL >

The corresponding optimum T& is

(21)
 Internal irreversibilities of a Camot engine 1177

0.14

0.12

0.10

0.06
p’,
%.T” 0.06

0.04

0.02

0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.6 0.9 1.0
%6
Fig. 4. Maximum power of an irreversible Camot cycle.

Substituting Eqs. (20) and (21) into Eq. (14), the maximum power becomes

K,K~(l&%-fi)~
P'
max= (22)
KH+RASKL *

It is seen that Eq. (22) reduces to Eq. (7) when R As is equal to 1 (the endoreversible case);
Pk,=O when Ras= TL/TH.
As expected, P&,,is a monotonic function of RAs within the range of interest (from TL/THto
1.0). That is, as RAs decreases (corresponding to increasing cycle irreversibility), Pk,,also
decreases. The dependence of P,!,,, on RAs is shown in Fig. 4. This curve holds for
TL/TH=0.25and KLIKH= 1.0.
The cycle efficiency of an irreversible Camot engine is easily obtained:

(23)

Compared with Eq. (8) it is obvious that this efficiency is always lower than the
Curzon-Ahlborn efficiency. The two become identical when RAs = 1.0.

RELATION TO THE SECOND-LAW EFFICIENCY

In many thermodynamics textbooks,4*5 a second-law efficiency is defined as the ratio of an

engine efficiency to that of a reversible engine operating under the same source and sink
temperatures. For the irreversible Carnot engine under consideration, the second-law efficiency
is then

%I= tlrlcarnot. (24)

Using the expressions in Eqs. (9) and (23), one can readily show that the relationship between
the cycle-irreversibility parameter and the second-law efficiency is

(25)
1178 CHIH WLJ and ROBERT L. KIANG

Although RAs and qII have a one-to-one correspondence, it is obvious that if one tries to
express P&, in terms of vrr, the result is a much more complex function than that seen in Eq.
(22).
It is perhaps worthwhile mentioning that when we first started looking for parameters that
would characterize the internal irreversibility of a Carnot engine so as to extend Curzon and
Ahlborn’s endoreversible results, we did not expect that a single parameter would suffice. As it
turns out, a single parameter, Rhs, is all that is necessary. It is not surprising that RAs is
u since the latter is meant to incorporate all irreversibilities in a real
directly related to T,J
engine.

CONCLUSION

It has been shown that the internal irreversibilities in a Carnot engine can be characterized
by a single parameter representing the ratio of two entropy differences. This parameter, named
the cycle-irreversibility parameter, appears in both the equations for maximum power and
efficiency. With this parameter being less than 1 at all time, the equations clearly show that
when compared with an endoreversible Carnot engine, the engine with internal irrever-
sibilities delivers less power and has a lower efficiency. In our continuing search for a realistic
theoretical upper limit for the cycle efficiency, this new equation for efficiency represents a
further improvement to the Curzon and Ahlborn equation.

REFERENCES

1. F. L. Curzon and B. Ahlbom, Am. J. Phys. 43, 22 (1975).

2. J. M. Gordon, Am. J. Phys. 59,551 (1991).
3. A. Bejan, Advanced Engineering Thermodynamics, Wiley, New York, NY (1988).
4. Y. A. Cengel and M. A. Boles, Thermodynamics: An Engineering Approach, McGraw-Hill, New
York, NY (1989).
5. G. J. van Wylen and R. E. Sonntag, Fundamentals of Classical Thermodynamics, Wiley, New York,
NY (1986).

NOMENCLATURE

C, = Irreversible heat input parameter. R,.$ = Cycle irreversibilityparameter.

C, = Irreversible heat rejection S = Entropy.
parameter. T = Absolute temperature.
K = Thermal conductance. r~= Thermodynamic efficiency.
P = Power. ’ = Any quantity associated with the
0 = Rate of heat transfer. irreversible engine.