Optimal Analysis of Irreversible Carnot Cycle Based on Entransy Dissipation

Abstract

The concept of entransy has been proposed recently as a potential heat transfer mechanism and could be useful in analyzing and optimizing the heat-work conversion systems. This work presents an entransy analysis for the irreversible Carnot cycle by systematic balance formulations of the entransy loss, work entransy, and entransy dissipations, which are consistent with exergy balances. Additionally, several forms of system efficiency are introduced based on entransy for the appreciation of the optimal system performance. The effects of the source temperature and irreversible efficiencies on the optimal conditions for system efficiencies are systematically investigated for both dumping and non-dumping cases of used source fluid. The results show different trends in entransy efficiencies when compared to the conventional efficiencies of energy and exergy, and represent another method to assess the effective use of heat source in power generation systems.