Second Law for Active Heat Engines

Demons, Engines and the Second Law

O ne manifestation of the sec­ ond law of thermodynamics is that such devices as refrigera­ tors, which create inequalities of tem­ perature, require energy in order to operate. Conversely, an existing in­ equality of temperature can be ex­ ploited to do useful work-for exam­ ple by a steam engine, which exploits the temperature difference between its hot boiler and its cold condenser. Yet in 1...

Second Law Analysis in Convective Heat and Mass Transfer

This paper reports the numerical determination of the entropy generation due to heat transfer, mass transfer and fluid friction in steady state for laminar double diffusive convection, in an inclined enclosure with heat and mass diffusive walls, by solving numerically the mass, momentum, species conservation and energy balance equations, using a Control Volume FiniteElement Method. The influenc...

A simple model for Carnot heat engines

Efficiency bounds for nonequilibrium heat engines

We analyze the efficiency of thermal engines (either quantum or classical) working with a single heat reservoir like an atmosphere. The engine first gets an energy intake, which can be done in an arbitrary nonequilibrium way e.g. combustion of fuel. Then the engine performs the work and returns to the initial state. We distinguish two general classes of engines where the working body first equi...

The Second Rewrite Engines Competition

The Second Rewrite Engines Competition (REC) was celebrated as part of the 7th Workshop on Rewriting Logic and its Applications (WRLA 2008). In this edition of the competition participated five systems, namely ASF+SDF, Maude, Stratego/XT, TermWare, and Tom. We explain here how the competition was organized and conducted, and present its main results and conclusions.