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heat engine

System that performs the conversion of heat or thermal energy to mechanical work

Instance of: engine class
Subclass of: thermodynamic system
, engine
, power engine

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

A heat engine is a system that transfers thermal energy to do mechanical or electrical work. While originally conceived in the context of mechanical energy, the concept of the heat engine has been applied to various other kinds of energy, particularly electrical, since at least the late 19th century. The heat engine does this by bringing a working substance from a higher state temperature to a lower state temperature. A heat source supplies thermal energy that brings the working substance to the higher temperature state. The working substance does work in the working body of the engine while transferring heat to the colder sink until it reaches a lower temperature state. During this process some of the thermal energy is converted into work by exploiting the properties of the working substance. The working substance can be any system with a non-zero heat capacity, but it usually is a gas or liquid. During this process, some heat is normally lost to the surroundings and is not converted to work. Also, in a mechanical engine, some energy is unusable because of friction and drag.

Overview

All data

37 statements · 14% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Made from material: thermal energy
Product or material produced: mechanical energy
Studied by: thermodynamics
Has goal: energy transformation

On other databases

31 identifiers linking heat engine across the web's reference databases

Data quality

statements

14%

externally sourced

Source last edited September 10, 2026. AIDB refreshes this page daily.

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AIDB. (2026). heat engine (Q178185). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/heat-engine-Q178185