If an automobile had a 100%-efficient engine, transferring all of the fuel's energy to work, would the engine be warm to your touch? Would its exhaust heat the surrounding air? Would it make any noise? Would it vibrate? Would any of its fuel go unused? Discuss.

Question

Physics

Rohan Johnston

21 December, 08:04

If an automobile had a 100%-efficient engine, transferring all of the fuel's energy to work, would the engine be warm to your touch? Would its exhaust heat the surrounding air? Would it make any noise? Would it vibrate? Would any of its fuel go unused? Discuss.

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Landon Farley · Answer 1

The engine would be warm to touch, and the exhaust gases would be at ambient temperature. The engine would not vibrate nor make any noise. None of the fuel entering the engine would go unused.

Explanation:

In this ideal engine, none of these events would happen due to the nature of the efficiency.

We can define efficiency as the ratio between the used energy and the potential generable energy in the fuel.

n=W, total / (E, available).

However, in real engines the energy generated in the combustion of the fuel transforms into heat (which heates the exhost gases, and the engine therefore transfering some of this heat to the environment). Also, there are some mechanical energy loss due to vibrations and sound, which are also energy that comes from the fuel combustion.