Efficiency at and near maximum power of low-dissipation heat engines

Viktor Holubec and Artem Ryabov
Phys. Rev. E 92, 052125 – Published 18 November 2015; Erratum Phys. Rev. E 93, 059904 (2016)

Abstract

A universality in optimization of trade-off between power and efficiency for low-dissipation Carnot cycles is presented. It is shown that any trade-off measure expressible in terms of efficiency and the ratio of power to its maximum value can be optimized independently of most details of the dynamics and of the coupling to thermal reservoirs. The result is demonstrated on two specific trade-off measures. The first one is designed for finding optimal efficiency for a given output power and clearly reveals diseconomy of engines working at maximum power. As the second example we derive universal lower and upper bounds on the efficiency at maximum trade-off given by the product of power and efficiency. The results are illustrated on a model of a diffusion-based heat engine. Such engines operate in the low-dissipation regime given that the used driving minimizes the work dissipated during the isothermal branches. The peculiarities of the corresponding optimization procedure are reviewed and thoroughly discussed.

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  • Received 3 July 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.92.052125

©2015 American Physical Society

Erratum

Authors & Affiliations

Viktor Holubec* and Artem Ryabov

  • Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Department of Macromolecular Physics, V Holešovičkách 2, CZ-180 00 Praha, Czech Republic

  • *viktor.holubec@mff.cuni.cz

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Vol. 92, Iss. 5 — November 2015

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