Thermal Analysis of the Heat Exchangers and Regenerator in Stirling Cycle Machines

A closed-form expression for the effectiveness of the heat exchangers and regenerator of a Stirling cycle machine is given. This result may be used in a simple way to evaluate their effect on the machine performance. The proposed method allows the actual cycle gas temperatures in the heater and cooler to be obtained readily, once the geometry of the heater, cooler, and regenerator is known and some quantities characterizing the engine dynamics (strokes, frequency, and phase angle of the moving elements) and its heat-exchange processes (inlet temperatures of the heating and cooling  uids and their volumetric  ow rates) are measured. Thus, an immediate indication about the effectiveness of the heat exchangers and regenerator as well as about the machine thermal efŽ ciency may be obtained. The availability of a closedform expression for the heater, regenerator, and cooler effectiveness is useful especially for those engines, like the free-piston Stirling engines, whose design requires the application of analytically based optimization criteria. The obtained relations have been applied to the well-known Space Power Research Engine.

[1]  Giovanni Benvenuto,et al.  An Adiabatic Approach for the Design and the Response-to-Load Evaluation of Free-Piston Stirling Engines , 1992 .

[2]  A J Organ.  Solution of the Classic Thermal Regenerator Problem , 1994 .

[3]  G. Benvenuto,et al.  Dynamic Behaviour Prediction Of Free-piston Stirling Engines , 1990, Proceedings of the 25th Intersociety Energy Conversion Engineering Conference.

[4]  John Dewey Jones,et al.  Optimization Of Stirling Engine Regenerator Design , 1990, Proceedings of the 25th Intersociety Energy Conversion Engineering Conference.

[5]  G. Benvenuto,et al.  The effect of nonlinear thermo-fluid-dynamic terms on free-piston Stirling machine stability , 1996, IECEC 96. Proceedings of the 31st Intersociety Energy Conversion Engineering Conference.

[6]  G. Benvenuto,et al.  Analysis of Free-Piston Stirling Engine/Linear Alternator Systems Part 2 - Results , 1995 .

[7]  G. Dochat.  Free-piston Space Stirling Technology Program , 1990, Proceedings of the 25th Intersociety Energy Conversion Engineering Conference.

[8]  Graham Walker,et al.  Free piston Stirling engines , 1985 .

[9]  Allan J. Organ,et al.  Thermodynamics and Gas Dynamics of the Stirling Cycle Machine , 1992 .

[10]  Terrence W. Simon,et al.  A survey of oscillating flow in Stirling engine heat exchangers , 1988 .

[11]  Mark L. Underwood.  Advanced Radioisotope Power Source Options for Pluto Express , 1995 .

[12]  G. Reader.  The Pseudo Stirling cycle - A suitable performance criterion , 1978 .

[13]  J. L. Smith,et al.  An Approximate Solution for the Thermal Performance of a Stirling-Engine Regenerator , 1969 .

[14]  D. Kankam,et al.  Transient and steady-state performance of Space Power Research Engine with resistive/motor loads , 1996, IECEC 96. Proceedings of the 31st Intersociety Energy Conversion Engineering Conference.

[15]  W. Chung,et al.  Heat transfer analysis in Stirling engine heat input system , 1995 .

[16]  J. D. Jones.  Performance of a Stirling Engine Regenerator Having Finite Mass , 1986 .

[17]  S. C. Huang.  HFAST - A harmonic analysis program for Stirling cycles , 1992 .

[18]  D. R. Gedeon,et al.  Oscillating-flow regenerator test rig , 1994 .

[19]  C. D. West,et al.  Linear harmonic analysis for Stirling machines and second law analysis of four important losses , 1984 .

[20]  D. Gedeon,et al.  Oscillating-Flow Regenerator Test Rig: Hardware and Theory With Derived Correlations for Screens and Felts , 1996 .

[21]  S. N. Rea,et al.  The Influence of Pressure Cycling on Thermal Regenerators , 1967 .

[22]  Louis F. Goldberg.  One- and two-dimensional Stirling machine simulation using experimentally generated flow turbulence models , 1990 .

[23]  Steven M. Geng,et al.  Comparison of GLIMPS and HFAST Stirling engine code predictions with experimental data , 1992 .

[24]  Irene A. Stegun,et al.  Handbook of Mathematical Functions. , 1966 .

[25]  P. Cheng,et al.  Correlations of the cycle-averaged Nusselt number in a periodically reversing pipe flow , 1993 .

[26]  Israel Urieli,et al.  Stirling Cycle Engine Analysis , 1983 .

[27]  M. Ozisik.  Heat Transfer: A Basic Approach , 1984 .

[28]  M. D. Kankam,et al.  Comparative survey of dynamic analyses of free-piston Stirling engines , 1991 .

[29]  Peter J. Heggs,et al.  Unified Regenerator Theory and Reexamination of the Unidirectional Regenerator Performance , 1990 .

[30]  G. Benvenuto,et al.  Reflections on Free-Piston Stirling Engines, Part 2: Stable Operation , 1998 .

[31]  Allan J. Organ.  The wire mesh regenerator of the Stirling cycle machine , 1994 .

[32]  C. M. Hargreaves.  The Philips Stirling Engine , 1991 .