Breathtaking Physics: Human Respiration

as a Heat Engine
Cite as: Phys. Teach. 58, 150 (2020); https://doi.org/10.1119/1.5145400
Published Online: 19 February 2020

Trevor C. Lipscombe, and Carl E. Mungan

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© 2020 American Association of Physics Teachers.

Breathtaking Physics: Human Respiration as a Heat
Engine
Trevor C. Lipscombe, Catholic University of America Press, Washington, DC
Carl E. Mungan, U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD

B
reathing is something we all do, usually without think- 3.0
ing about it. But when viewed through the lens of
inhale
physics, respiration becomes an example of elementary 2.5
exhale
thermodynamics. As shown here, the lungs can be modeled as
2.0
a two-stroke heat engine. Breathing thereby provides a novel

Pressure P (kPa)
physics application for life science students,1 demonstrating 1.5
the basics of the first law of thermodynamics, coefficient of
performance, and hysteresis. 1.0

Specifically, there is hysteresis in the expansion and con- 0.5

traction of the lungs during breathing, arising from the col-
lapse of the alveoli during expiration.2 It takes extra energy 0.0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5
to overcome surface tension and re-expand the tiny air sacs Volume V (L)
in the lungs during inspiration. Consequently, net work is
Fig. 1. Pressure-volume respiration cycle for a healthy adult from
done during each complete cycle of inhalation and exhalation. Eq. (4) using the parameters in Eqs. (6) and (7). The difference
The energy input arises mainly from the mass transfer of air between the two curves is the hysteresis, and its area is equal to
into the lungs, which can be considered a form of heat.3 The the net work done by the lungs.
ratio of the total heat input to the net work expended defines it has fewer free parameters than do alternative pulmonary
a coefficient of performance, which can be compared to the models in the medical literature. Equation (3) is inverted to
overall performance of the human body treated as a Carnot obtain
engine. (4)
Air is a diatomic gas (neglecting the small amounts of CO2
and H2O involved in breathing4) with five degrees of freedom Physically, A is the maximum lung capacity in liters, and k
(three translational and two rotational kinetic energy terms) is the coefficient of compressibility (inversely proportional
per molecule near room temperature. Thus the internal ener- to the elastic stiffness8) of the lungs measured in reciprocal
gy of a sample of air containing N molecules at temperature T centimeters of water pressure where 1 cm H2O = 98.07 Pa. An
is5 inhalation-exhalation cycle starts at P = 0 and V = 0. Next,
(1)
during inhalation, the lung volume V increases along with the
according to the equipartition theorem, where kB is the Boltz- pressure P, as graphed in Fig. 1, which is sometimes called a
mann constant. In the second step, the equation has been compliance diagram.9 After reaching some final values Vf and
expressed instead in terms of the number of moles n and the Pf, exhalation begins. Since Eq. (3) must describe that point
universal gas constant R. Treating air as an ideal gas, Eq. (1) during both the inhalation and exhalation phases, it must be
can be rewritten as the case that
(2) (5)

2
Here V is the internal volume of air in the lungs. Crudely The measured data in Fig. 6 of Salazar (for a healthy human
thinking of a lung like a rubber balloon, it collapses to nearly adult) correspond to
zero volume at atmospheric pressure, which corresponds to
U = 0, and thus P is the gauge pressure. During respiration,
both the number of moles and the temperature of the air in the (6)
lungs change,6 and so in what follows no further reference will
be made to either n or T. Instead, all quantities of interest will
be rewritten in terms of the single driving variable P by model-
ing the volume in terms of positive parameters A and k as2
Note that k is larger during exhalation, after the alveoli have
(3)
been inflated and the lung is consequently more compressible;
with values AI and kI during inhalation, and AE and kE during in contrast, like an uninflated balloon, the lung is stiffer
exhalation. This expression is an empirical fit obtained by during the initial inhalation phase. Substitution of Eq. (6) into
simultaneously measuring the gauge pressure of human lungs Eq. (5) leads to
using an esophageal catheter and their volume using a body
plethysmograph.7 It is adopted here for its simplicity, because (7)
.
150 THE PHYSICS TEACHER ◆ Vol. 58, March 2020 DOI: 10.1119/1.5145400
Finally, at the conclusion of exhalation, the lungs return to
their resting atmospheric pressure and volume.
The work done by the lungs is computed by integrating
dW = PdV. (8)
As plotted in Fig. 1, the work is positive during inhalation and
negative during exhalation. Substituting Eq. (3) into Eq. (8)
results in
(9)
using Eq. (3) to eliminate the exponential term in the last step.
Thus the net work expended by the body for a complete inha-
lation-exhalation cycle is
(10)
The result using the values in Eqs. (6) and (7) is
Wnet = 0.820 J. (11)
Define the heat input as the sum of the change in internal
energy and the output work,
(12)
using Eqs. (2) and (8). The heat calculated this way is domi-
nated by the energy input due to mass transfer of oxygen into
the body during inhalation, which counts into the “fuel cost”
from the surroundings. Since both P and V increase mono-
tonically during inhalation, heat is continuously input during
that phase. Conversely, heat is continuously output during
exhalation (mainly by the transfer of carbon dioxide out of the
body). Using Eqs. (2) and (9), the heat input during inhalation
is
(13)
Again using the values in Eqs. (6) and (7), one obtains
QI = 25.3 J . (14)
Hence the coefficient of performance (COP) of the human
body due to respiration is
respiration  QI/ Wnet = 31. (15)
One could also calculate a contribution to the COP of a
body based on the energetics of food consumption and water
evaporation.10 However, a single breath takes a few seconds,
which is short on the timescale of food digestion and water
transpiration. For this reason also, the net energy input per
breath, QI – QE , is small, equal to Wnet, which is less than 1 J
according to Eq. (11). However, when QI is multiplied by the
20,000 or so breaths a healthy adult makes in 24 hours, it adds
up to a significant contribution to the overall energy budget of
a human body, equal to about 6% of the approximately 9 MJ
corresponding to a 2100 food calorie daily diet.
The body’s overall Carnot coefficient of performance, as-
suming the hot reservoir is the body at 37 oC = 310 K and the
cold reservoir is room temperature at 20 oC = 293 K, is5
body = (293 K)/ (310 K – 293 K) = 17. (16)
11
A body also does muscular work to walk up stairs, lift ob-
jects onto shelves, and the like, so that Wnet is overall larger
than what was calculated in Eq. (11) for moving the dia-
phragm alone. It is also worth observing that the COP in Eq.
(15) depends on Vf via Eqs. (10) and (13). The higher one’s
utilized lung volume, the more efficient is breathing. People
with cystic fibrosis, for example, have reduced lung capacity
and thus have to work harder to move air in and out. One
might think that musicians who spend years playing wind
instruments would develop expanded lung utilization and
therefore breathe more efficiently, but surprisingly that turns
out not to be the case.12
The calculations used here could be adapted to other pres-
sure-volume curves for the lungs. Venegas8 has reviewed a
number of such alternative relationships that physiologists
have proposed.
References
1. C. H. Crouch and K. Heller, “Introductory physics in biological
context: An approach to improve introductory physics for life
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2. E. Salazar and J. H. Knowles, “An analysis of pressure-volume
characteristics of the lungs,” J. Appl. Physiol. 19, 97–104 (Jan.
1964).
3. Heat is here defined as any form of energy transfer other than
work. Heat thus includes the metabolic gain in chemical en-
ergy of the body following the exchange of oxygen for carbon
dioxide during respiration. See for example Eq. (1) in H. S. Leff
and C. E. Mungan, “Isothermal heating: Purist and utilitarian
views,” Eur. J. Phys. 39, 045103 (July 2018) or Sec. 3.8 of F. W.
Sears and G. L. Salinger, Thermodynamics, Kinetic Theory, and
Statistical Thermodynamics, 3rd ed. (Addison-Wesley, Reading
MA, 1986).
4. M. G. Abrahamyan, “Some aspects of the physics of gas flow in
the respiratory system,” Int. J. Clin. Exp. Med. Sci. 4, 1–4 (Jan.
2018).
5. R. D. Knight, Physics for Scientists and Engineers, 4th ed. (Pear-
son, Upper Saddle River NJ, 2017).
6. C. L. N. Oliveira, A. D. Araújo, J. H. T. Bates, J. S. Andrade, and
B. Suki, “Entropy production and the pressure-volume curve of
the lung,” Front. Physiol. 7, 73 (March 2016).
7. L. D. Pengelly, “Curve-fitting analysis of pressure-volume char-
acteristics of the lungs,” J. Appl. Physiol. Respir. Environ. Exerc.
Physiol. 42, 111–116 (Jan. 1977).
8. J. G. Venegas, R. S. Harris, and B. A. Simon, “A comprehensive
equation for the pulmonary pressure-volume curve,” J. Appl.
Physiol. 84, 389–395 (Jan. 1998).
9. V. J. Menon and D. C. Agrawal, “Physics of quiet and suffocative
breathing,” Am. J. Phys. 71, 474–478 (May 2003).
10. C. E. Mungan and T. C. Lipscombe, “A physics model for weight
loss by dieting,” Lat. Am. J. Phys. Educ. 6, 344–346 (Sept. 2012).
11. A. R. Comeford, C. E. Mungan, and N. R. Greene, “A simple
measurement of the relative efficiency of human locomotion,”
Phys. Educ. 54, 043004 (July 2019).
12. A. G. Fuhrmann, P. J. Franklin, and G. L. Hall, “Prolonged use
of wind or brass instruments does not alter lung function in
musicians,” Respir. Med. 105, 761–767 (May 2011).
THE PHYSICS TEACHER ◆ Vol. 58, March 2020 151