Efficiency of Diesel Heat Engine

by Stephanie Marin

Submitted : Spring 2018

In this project, the amount of work, heat and change in energy was found for the 2013 Mercedes-Benz E350 Bluetec model diesel engine. The efficiency of this diesel heat engine must be found to determine if modifications need to be made, or if this product can be placed in their new cars. A heat engine must emit some heat into the environment when work is being done by the system. This proves the Second Law of Thermodynamics right, that it is impossible to remove heat from a hot reservoir and use it all to perform work, some must be lost to the cold reservoir/environment. Since a heat engine must lose some heat, it goes through a series of process to complete one cycle of work. In this case, three processes are shown. The amount of work for each process was found using the different equations based on the change in temperature of each process. The amount of heat put into the system was found using two different equations based on the temperature change in each process and the change in internal energy was found. In order to reach the total work, heat and change of internal energy of the system for one complete cycle, the results from each process must be summed respectively. The efficiency of the cycle was calculated and it was concluded not very efficient.

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