Local Stability of an Endoreversible Heat Engine Working in an Ecological Regime

Abstract

We present a local stability analysis of an endoreversible engine working in an ecological regime, for three common heat transfer laws. From our local stability analysis we conclude that the system is stable for every value of the heat conductivity g, the heat capacity C and the ratio of temperatures τ = T2/T1with T1> T2. After a small perturbation the system decays exponentially to the steady state determined by two different relaxation times. We observe that the stability of the system improves as r increases whereas the steady-state energetic properties of the engine decline. Moreover, we compare the stability properties of the engine working in the ecological regime and under maximum power output. Finally, qualitative phase-space portraits for the evolution of the system are presented for representative cases.