Chapter 19 Heat Engines and Refrigerators

Physics for Scientists and Engineers, 2e (Knight)

19.1

Quantitative
1)

A nuclear power plant has an actual efficiency of 39%. If 0.25 MW of energy are released from fission,
how much electric power does the power plant produce?
A)

0.098 MW
B)

9.8 MW
C)

35 MW
D)

0.35 MW
Answer:

A
Var: 50+

2)

An automobile engine takes in 4000 J of heat and performs 1100 J of mechanical work in each cycle. (a)
Calculate the engine's efficiency. (b) How much heat is "wasted" in each cycle?
Answer:

(a) 27.5% (b) 2900 J

3)

The figure shows a cycle for a heat engine for which QH=35 J. What is the thermal efficiency?
 A)

29 %
B)

57 %
C)

14 %
D)

23 %
Answer:

A
Var: 50+
 4)

A gas follows the pV trajectory shown in the figure. How much work is done per cycle by the gas if p0 =
8.6 atm?

A)

350 J
B)

700 J
C)

1400 J
D)

1700 J
Answer:

A
Var: 50+

5)

The turbine engine of a jet aircraft takes in 9500 J of heat and discards 6500 J during each cycle. (a)
Calculate the efficiency of the engine. (b) Calculate the pressure ratio in the engine, assuming the
working gas is air.
Answer:

(a) 31.6% (b) rp = 3.78

6)

A refrigerator with a coefficient of performance of 3.7 cools to 9.0°C. What is the high temperature, Th,
needed to operate the refrigerator at 9.0°C?
A)
85°C
B)

1052°C
C)

11°C
D)

42°C
Answer:

A
Var: 50+

7)

A heat pump with a coefficient of performance of 4.9 absorbs heat from the atmosphere at a rate of 30
kW. At what rate is it doing work?
A)

6 kW
B)

147 kW
C)

117 kW
D)

36 kW
Answer:

A
Var: 50+

8)

A refrigerator has a coefficient of performance of 1.15, and it extracts 7.95 J of heat from the cold reservoir
during each cycle. (a) How much work is done on the gas in each cycle? (b) How much heat is
exhausted into the hot reservoir in each cycle?
Answer:

(a) 6.91 J (b) 14.9 J

A reversible heat engine operates between Tc = 294 K and Th = 450 K. What is its efficiency?
A)

0.35
B)

0.65
C)

0.53
D)

1.53
Answer:

A
Var: 50+

10)

A reversible heat engine has an efficiency of 0.800. If it operates between a deep lake with a constant
temperature of 287.0 K and a hot reservoir, what is the temperature of the hot reservoir?
A)

1440 K
B)

359 K
C)

517 K
D)

646 K
Answer:

A
Var: 50+

11)

A Carnot engine extracts 508 J of heat from a high-temperature reservoir during each cycle, and rejects
303 J of heat to a low-temperature reservoir during the same cycle. What is the efficiency of the engine?
 A)

0.4
B)

0.68
C)

1.68
D)

0.63
Answer:

A
Var: 50+

12)

A Carnot engine operates between a high temperature reservoir at 435 K and a river with water at 280 K.
If it absorbs 3700 J of heat each cycle, how much work per cycle does it perform?
A)

1318 J
B)

2382 J
C)

1449 J
D)

2251 J
Answer:

A
Var: 50+

13)

A Carnot engine operating between a warmer unknown temperature and a reservoir of boiling helium at
1.76 K has an efficiency of 11.0%. What is the warmer temperature?
A)
1.98 K
B)

0.180 K
C)

157 K
D)

0.160 K
Answer:

A
Var: 16
 14)

A Carnot engine operating between a reservoir of liquid mercury at its melting point and a colder
reservoir extracts 10.0 J of heat from the mercury and does 8.0 J of work during each cycle. What is the
temperature of the colder reservoir? Mercury melts at 233 K.
A)

47 K
B)

186 K
C)

163 K
D)

207 K
Answer:

A
Var: 50+

15)

What is the efficiency of a Carnot engine operating between a reservoir in which ice and water coexist,
and a reservoir in which water and steam coexist? The pressure is constant at 1.0 atmosphere for both.
A)

27%
B)

0.27%
C)

100%
D)

1.0%
Answer:

A
Var: 1

16)
A Carnot engine operates between two reservoirs with unknown temperatures. If the Carnot engine
operates at 43% efficiency, what is the ratio of the kelvin temperatures of the reservoirs, Tc/Th?
A)

0.57
B)

0.0021
C)

0.0016
D)

0.43
Answer:

A
Var: 42

17)

A Carnot engine operates between reservoirs at 550K and 300K, discarding 1500 J of heat in each cycle.
(a) What is the engine's efficiency? (b) How much heat is supplied to the engine by the hot reservoir in
each cycle?
Answer:

(a) 45.5% (b) 2750 J

19.2

True/False
1)

Heat can be transformed into work with 100% efficiency, but work cannot be transformed into heat with
100% efficiency.
Answer:

FALSE
Var: 1

2)

A heat engine that is 40% efficient and has a heat input of 200 J per cycle at the hot reservoir will waste 80
J of heat each cycle.
FALSE
Var: 1

3)

A 20% efficient heat engine that must do 50 J of work each cycle requires a heat input of 250 J per cycle.
Answer:

TRUE
Var: 1
 4)

A refrigerator increases the entropy of its hot reservoir at the same time as it decreases the entropy of its
cold reservoir, but a heat engine does just the opposite.
Answer:

TRUE
Var: 1

5)

Just as a heat engine is more and more effective as its efficiency approaches 1, a refrigerator is more and
more effective as its coefficient of performance approaches 1.
Answer:

FALSE
Var: 1

6)

All real heat engines are less efficient than the Carnot engine.
Answer:

TRUE
Var: 1

7)

As you increase the difference between the temperatures of the hot and cold reservoirs, a Carnot engine
converts a larger and larger percent of the heat put into it into work.
Answer:

TRUE
Var: 1

8)

A Carnot engine operating between heat reservoirs at 10°C and 40°C has an efficiency of 75%.
Answer:

FALSE
Var: 1

19.3

Conceptual
 1)

Despite its high temperatures, it would be difficult to build an efficient heat engine on the sun. This is
because at extremely high temperatures the ratio Th/Tc approaches what value for any reasonable ΔT?
Answer:

1
Var: 1

2)

Fill in the blank with a short answer. An engine using water to cool it and operating with a high
temperature reservoir Th = 300 K is never very efficient because Tc/Th cannot vary much from one. This is
because Tc is restricted to values greater than or equal to _____.
Answer:

273 K, the freezing point of water

3)

Why would a power plant operate more efficiently at the north pole than at the equator? Assume the
power plant burns fossil fuel, and the fuel always is burned at the same temperature, regardless of
location.
Answer:

Tc is lower at the north pole, thereby causing Tc/Th to be lower, which makes e higher.
Var: 1

4)

Two heat engines operate with the same temperature difference, but have different efficiencies. The one
operating between the higher Th and Tc is the less efficient of the two. Why?
Answer:

The efficiency depends on the negative of the ratio Tc/Th, which reduces efficiency when Tc/Th is higher
or when Tc and Th are lower.
Var: 1
 5)

For a refrigerator, is it better to have Th close to Tc or to have Th and Tc differ significantly?

Th close to Tc
Var: 1

6)

According to Carnot's theorem, no engine operating between Th and Tc can exceed a Carnot
engineoperating between the same temperaturesin _____.
Answer:

Efficiency
Var: 1