Abstract
Dynamic programming, an optimization procedure has been used to study the efficiency of a heat engine. The optimum solution is one that is optimized at every point along any arbitrary trajectory in the P‐V diagram. We assume that we have a four step cyclic process on a PV diagram which can be represented as PVn′ = nRTVn′−1 = c where c is a constant. Here n′ and c are any real constants which may assume different values for each of the processes. Based on the optimality principle of dynamic programming, we are able to show that the first process should be isothermal expansion followed by an adiabatic expansion followed by an isothermal compression and adiabatic compression. Using this optimality procedure, the efficiency of the heat engine can be obtained as η = 1 − T1/T2 where T2 and T1 are the upper and lower temperatures.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
