Thermodynamic performance of Dual-Miller cycle (DMC) with polytropic processes based on power output, thermal efficiency and ecological function.

This study reports a new model of an air standard Dual-Miller cycle (DMC) with two polytropic processes and heat transfer loss. The two reversible adiabatic processes which could not be realized in practice are replaced with two polytropic processes in order to more accurately reflect the practical working performance. The heat transfer loss is taken into account. The expressions of power output, thermal efficiency, entropy generation rate (EGR) and ecological function are addressed using finite-time thermodynamic theory. Through numerical calculations, the influences of compression ratio, cut-off ratio and polytropic exponent on the performance are thermodynamically analyzed. The model can be simplified to other cycle models under specific conditions, which means the results have an certain universality and may be helpful in the design of practical heat engines. It is shown that the entropy generation minimization does not always lead to the best system performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]