Carnot Cycle (Heat Engine)

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Carnot cycle is a four stage reversible sequence consisting of

1. adiabatic compression
2. isothermal expansion at high temperature T2
3. adiabatic expansion
4. isothermal compression at low temperature T1

5. back to stage 1 and continue.

The program will show the piston position and related information
as you move the mouse inside the P-V region.
Click the mouse to set the initial P-V value.

Before you set up the initial P-V value,
    you can click the horizon line and drag it to change the Max. pressure (Pmax).
Move the mouse to P=1 atm, and V=22.4(liter), and check out the value of PV/(nR).
Do you know how many mole of gas is inside the chamber?

click the mouse button again (within the possible region).

Click + to increase speed of animation  , click - to slow it down
    (Each click change the time scale by 1.25)
Click RIGHT mouse button to stop the animation, click it again to resume.

The efficiency of the heat engine will be displayed.
Different color for the gas volume represent its temperature.

Color of the piston:

Red : contact with heat reservoir at high T2 。
Yellow bar within the gas volume is proportional to heat flow (In).
Green: contact with heat reservoir at low T1 。
Yellow bar within the piston region is proportional to heat flow (Out).

(Total length of the yellow bar is the maximum heat flow during isothermal expansion process, some of the heat were release during the isothermal compression process.)

Blue : adiabatic process。

You can enter any value larger than 1. (Be reasonable, OK!)
It will reset the program automatically.

Your suggestions are highly appreciated!

E-mail : Please click [email protected]

Author：Fu-Kwun Hwang, Dept. of physics, National Taiwan Normal University

Last modified :