JOURNAL OF PHYSICS D-APPLIED PHYSICS, cilt.29, sa.11, ss.2823-2825, 1996 (SCI-Expanded)
An irreversible three-heat-source heat pump may be treated as a combined cycle of a finite-size irreversible Carnot heat engine driving an irreversible Carnot heat pump. The influence of thermal resistance and working fluid internal dissipation on the optimal performance of a three-heat-source heat pump is investigated by using a finite-time thermodynamic approach. The results obtained here are more realistic than those of classical thermodynamics.