Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-physics-b-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2017/paper-2/section-c/c10/limit-of-vanishing-heat-addition/solution

For , Taylor expansion gives . The vanishing-cutoff limit of the Diesel cycle is
The maximum temperature tends to , while the minimum stays at . A Carnot engine between those limiting extrema has
so the limiting efficiencies coincide. At exactly , however, both heat input and net work vanish, and the cycle retraces its compression adiabat. The efficiency there is an undefined ; the boxed value is the continuous limit for neighbouring nonzero cycles, not finite work at zero heat input.
For a finite cutoff ratio , the Carnot comparison uses , giving . The Diesel cycle has smaller efficiency. For example,
which makes its rejected/input heat ratio larger than the Carnot ratio.

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