Effect of Heat Leak and Finite Thermal Capacity on the Optimal Configuration of a Two-Heat-Reservoir Heat Engine for Another Linear Heat Transfer Law

Received: 12 November 2002 / Accepted: 22 May 2003 / Published: 31 December 2003 __________________________________________________________________________________ Abstract: Based on a model of a two-heat-reservoir heat engine with a finite high-temperature source and bypass heat leak, the optimal configuration of the cycle is found for the fixed cycle period with another linear heat transfer law ) ( 1 − Δ ∝ T Q . The finite thermal capacity source without heat leak makes the configuration of the cycle to a class of generalized Carnot cycle. The configuration of the cycle with heat leak and finite thermal capacity source is different from others.