Question

A heat engine does 200 j of work per cycle while exhausting 600 j of heat to the cold reservoir. what is the engine's thermal efficiency?

Answer 1

The thermal efficiency of an engine is

`\eta= (W)/(Q)`
where
W is the work done by the engine
Q is the heat absorbed by the engine to do the work

In this problem, the work done by the engine is W=200 J, while the heat exhausted is Q=600 J, so the efficiency of the machine is

`\eta= (W)/(Q)= (200 J)/(600 J)=0.33 = 33 \%`