Thermodynamic cycles

• Carnot cycle

  1. Composed of four reversible processes

  2. Isothermal processes

  3. Adiabatic processes
• Father of thermodynamics

  Nicholas Leonard Sadi Carnot
• Rankine cycle

  Ideal vapor cycle for steam power plants
• Otto cycle

  Constant volume combustion cycle for gasoline engines, introduced by Nicholas A. Otto
• Diesel cycle

  Constant pressure combustion cycle for diesel engines, introduced by Rudolf Diesel
• Brayton cycle

  Gas turbine cycle that converts fuel energy into work using compressed hot gas, also known as combustion turbine
• Reversed Carnot cycle

  Refrigerator cycle, analogous to Carnot cycle but in counterclockwise direction
• Emissivity

  Ratio of energy radiated from a surface to the energy radiated from a perfect emitter at the same temperature and wavelength
• Total internal energy

  Sum of kinetic energy of all constituent particles and potential energies of interaction among these particles
• Latent heat of vaporization

  Heat required to change unit mass of a substance from liquid to vapor state or vapor to liquid state at boiling point