Carnot, Stirling, Ericsson stochastic heat engines: Efficiency at maximum power

Abstract

This work obtains the efficiency at maximum power for a stochastic heat engine performing Carnot-like, Stirling-like and Ericsson-like cycles. For the mesoscopic engine a Brownian particle trapped by an optical tweezers is considered. The dynamics of this stochastic engine is described as an overdamped Langevin equation with a harmonic potential, whereas is in contact with two thermal baths at different temperatures, namely, hot ($T_h$) and cold ($T_c$). The harmonic oscillator Langevin equation is transformed into a macroscopic equation associated with the mean value $⟨x^2(t)⟩$ using the original Langevin approach. At equilibrium stationary state this quantity satisfies a state-like equation from which the thermodynamic properties are calculated. To obtained the efficiency at maximum power it is considered the finite-time cycle processes under the framework of low dissipation approach.

2 3pages, 5 figures

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Cited by in corpus (3)

• A quantum Otto-type heat engine with fixed frequency
• A stochastic Stirling engine powered by an active particle
• Maximum power Stirling-like heat engine with a harmonically confined Brownian particle