A heat engine operates between 100 degrees celsius and 500 degrees celsius. What's the theoretical efficiency?
I would like the basic steps!

Carnot cycle describes a theoretical perfect system.

The formula is T(hot) - T(cold) / T(hot)

773 - 373 / 773

= 51.74%

(Thot - Tcold)/Thot or 1 - Tcold/Thot, but yeah. You just wrote the formula incorrectly.

This post was edited by Dontrunaway on Jun 7 2014 03:31am