1. Efficiency of a heat engine is defined as the ratio of the work done by the engine to the heat supplied.

e = W / QH

e = 300 J / 900 J = 0.33

or expressed as a percentage e = 33%

2. The proposed engine claims to produce more work in a cyclic process than the amount of heat that is
supplied, so it is in violation of the first law of thermodynamics.

3. The work done by the machine is the difference between the heat supplied and the heat rejected.

W = QH - QL

W = 700 J - 500 J = 200 J

4. Answer

Today’s fundamental of engineering sample problem looks at calculating the thermal efficiency when
given units in the metric and English systems

Equation

Thermal Efficiency

\eta = \frac {Q_{in} - Q_{out}}{Q_{in}}

Variables

Qin = 520,000 tons

Qout 1.21 gigawatts (gw)

Solution

First step is to convert the units to the same type. Since there are only two variables you can use either
metric and convert the problem into watts or English and convert everything into tons. In this problem
we are going to convert the units of watts into tons (1 ton = 12,000 btuh)
(\frac {1\ ton}{12,000\ btu})(\frac {3412\ btu}{1\ kilowatt}) = 0.283 \frac {ton}{kw}

Now to put everything back into the thermal efficiency equation

\eta = \frac {520,000 - (1,210\ mw)(1,000\ kw/mw)(0.283\ ton/kw)}{520,000} = 0.3415

The correct answer is D with a thermal efficiency of 34%

5. Efficiency of a heat engine is defined as the ratio of the work done by the engine to the heat

supplied.

e = W / QH

We multiply both sides of the equation by QH to obtain W.

W = e QH

W = 0.25 (200 J) = 50 J

6. The efficiency of a Carnot engine depends only upon the temperatures of the two heat

reservoirs.

ec = (TH - TL ) / TH

ec = (900 K - 300 K) / 900 K = 0.67

or expressed as a percentage ec = 67%