Heat Engines & Second Law Statements | Thermodynamics - Mechanical Engineering PDF Download

Heat Engines and Second Law Statements

The First Law provides a constraint on the total energy contained in a system and its surroundings. If it disappears in one form from the system during any thermodynamic process of change, it must reappear in another form either within the system or in the surroundings. However, a pertinent question that one may often need to answer is: Is the process of change aimed at feasible? As may be evident, the first law provides no constraint on the possible direction a process may take place. Nevertheless, in the real world such constraints do exist. For example, heat always flows from a high temperature body to one at a lower temperature. Momentum flow is always prompted in the direction of a pressure gradient, and molecules always migrate from a region of higher to lower chemical potential. These observations clearly are indicative of the existence of a constraint on natural processes, which have never been found to be violated.

Further, it is common observation that work is readily transformed into other forms of energy, including heat. But all efforts to develop a device that may work in a continuous manner and convert heat completely into work or any other form of energy have proved impossible. Experimental observations show that typically no more than 40-50% of the total heat available may be converted to work or other energy forms. This finding has led to the conclusion that heat is a lower form of energy in that while it may be feasible to “degrade” work to heat, it is impossible to “upgrade” heat completely into work.

Heat may be seen as a more primitive form of energy, as it always has to be made available from matter (say by combustion) and subsequently converted to work for carrying out activities useful to humans. In this sense one never derives work directly from the energy locked in matter as enthalpy. This prompts the natural question: what determines the efficiency of such a conversion of heat to work? Evidently one needs a limiting principle that may help answer this question. These considerations provide the basis for formulating the Second Law of Thermodynamics.