Keywords: Heat engines, carnot cycle, internal, external, combustion engines , ... The 'gas' is an unchanging bunch of molecules. carnot cycle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot_cycle All steps reversible. The 'gas' is an unchanging bunch of molecules. 1 -> 2: Isothermal expansion of the gas at the "hot" temperature. Work output & heat adition. Pressure drops. 2 -> 3: Adiabatic (no heat transfer) expansion of the cooling gas Work output. Pressure drops. 3 -> 4: Isothermal compression of the gas at the "cold" temperature. Work input & heat removal. Pressure rises. 4 -> 1: Adiabatic compression of the warming gas. Work input. Pressure rises. Process 3 -> 4: Isothermal expansion. Process 4 -> 1: Isobaric heat removal. Process 1 -> 2: Isothermal compression. Process 2 -> 3: Isobaric heat addition. These potentially-implementable cycles (the internal combustion ones) use a new bunch of molecules for each cycle: brayton cycle otto cycle ericsson cycle stirling cycle atkinson cycle cf WikiPedia