Stirling Cycle Engines (PDF)

Some 200 years after the original invention, internal design of
a Stirling engine has come to be considered a specialist task,
calling for extensive experience and for access to sophisticated
computer modelling. The low parts-count of the type is negated by
the complexity of the gas processes by which heat is converted to
work. Design is perceived as problematic largely because those
interactions are neither intuitively evident, nor capable of being
made visible by laboratory experiment. There can be little doubt
that the situation stands in the way of wider application of this
elegant concept.

Stirling Cycle Engines re-visits the design challenge,
doing so in three stages. Firstly, unrealistic expectations are
dispelled: chasing the Carnot efficiency is a guarantee of
disappointment, since the Stirling engine has no such pretentions.
Secondly, no matter how complex the gas processes, they embody a
degree of intrinsic similarity from engine to engine. Suitably
exploited, this means that a single computation serves for an
infinite number of design conditions. Thirdly, guidelines resulting
from the new approach are condensed to high-resolution design
charts - nomograms.

Appropriately designed, the Stirling engine promises high
thermal efficiency, quiet operation and the ability to operate from
a wide range of heat sources. Stirling Cycle Engines offers
tools for expediting feasibility studies and for easing the task of
designing for a novel application.

Key features:

* Expectations are re-set to realistic goals.

* The formulation throughout highlights what the thermodynamic
processes of different engines have in common rather than what
distinguishes them.

* Design by scaling is extended, corroborated, reduced to the use
of charts and fully Illustrated.

* Results of extensive computer modelling are condensed down to
high-resolution Nomograms.

* Worked examples feature throughout.



Prime movers (and coolers) operating on the Stirling cycle are
of increasing interest to industry, the military (stealth
submarines) and space agencies. Stirling Cycle Engines fills
a gap in the technical literature and is a comprehensive manual for
researchers and practitioners. In particular, it will support
effort world-wide to exploit potential for such applications as
small-scale CHP (combined heat and power), solar energy conversion
and utilization of low-grade heat.