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Stirling engine
Contents [Hide] - Stirling cycle - Engine design - Bibliography

BIOGRAPHIES Stirling, Robert

DICTIONARY An engine in which work is performed by the expansion of a gas at high temperature to which heat is supplied through a wall. Like the internal combustion engine, a Stirling engine provides work by means of a cycle in which a piston compresses gas at a low temperature and allows it to expand at a high temperature. In the former case the heat is provided by the internal combustion of fuel in the cylinder, but in the Stirling engine the heat (obtained from externally burning fuel) is supplied to the gas through the wall of the cylinder (Fig. 1). See also: Internal combustion engine - Stirling engine

Fig. 1 Principle of Stirling engine, displacer type. Add to 'My Saved Images'

The rapid changes desired in the gas temperature are achieved by means of a second piston in the cylinder, called a displacer, which in moving up and down transfers the gas back and forth between two spaces, one at a fixed high temperature and the other at a fixed low temperature. When the displacer in Fig. 2 is raised, the gas will flow from the hot space via the heater and cooler tubes into the cold space. When it is moved downward, the gas will return to the hot space along the same path. During the first transfer stroke the gas has to yield up a large amount of heat to the cooler; an equal quantity of heat has to be taken up from the heater during the second stroke.

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Fig. 2 Stylized Stirling process. Add to 'My Saved Images'

The regenerator shown in Figs. 1 and 2 has been inserted between the heater tube and cooler tube in order to prevent unnecessary waste of this heat. It is a space filled with porous material to which the hot gas gives up its heat before entering the cooler; the cooled gas recovers the stored heat on its way back to the heater. The displacer system serves to heat and cool the gas periodically; associated with it is a piston which compresses the gas while it is in the cold space of the cylinder and allows it to expand while in the hot space. Since expansion takes place at a higher temperature than compression, it produces a surplus of work over that required for the compression.

Stirling cycle
Any practical version of the engine will embody some kind of crank and connecting rod mechanism, in consequence of which there will be no sharp transitions between the successive phases indicated in Fig. 2; but this will not alter the principle of the cycle (nor detract from its efficiency). If, for the sake of simplicity, the piston and displacer are assumed to move discontinuously, the cycle can be divided into the following four phases. (1) The piston is in its lowest position, the displacer in its highest. All the gas is in the cold space. (2) The displacer is still in its highest position; the piston has compressed the gas at low temperature. (3) The piston is still in its highest position; the displacer has moved down and transferred the compressed gas from the cold to the hot space. (4) The hot gas has expanded, pushing the pistons, followed by the displacer, to their lowest positions. The displacer is about to rise and return the gas to the cold space, the piston remaining where it is, to give phase I again. The actual piston and displacer movements might be as indicated in Fig. 3, which shows that the only essential condition for obtaining a surplus of work is that the maximum volume of the hot space occur before that of the cold space. This condition shows that more configurations with pistons and cylinders are possible than just the type with displacer in order to get a Stirling cycle. One of the most compact systems is shown in Fig. 4, which is the system known as the double-acting engine. In the double-acting engine there is a hot space (expansion space) at the top and a cold one (compression space) at the bottom of each of the four cylinders shown. The hot space of a cylinder is connected to the cold one through a heater, a regenerator, and a cooler. The pistons P n of the cylinders move with a suitable phase shift between them. In the case of four cylinders, as shown in Fig. 4, this shift is 90.

Fig. 3 Piston and displacer movement for a Stirling engine. (a) The continuous movement of the piston and displacer shown as a function of crank angle . There is no clear-cut division between the various phases of the cycle. The variations in volume of the hot space VE and the cold space VC are plotted separately in the lower part of the diagram. (b ) The PV diagram of the cycle. Add to 'My Saved Images'

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Fig. 4 Principle of the double-acting engine. Add to 'My Saved Images'

The theory of an actual engine is very complicated. In order to provide an understanding of the quantities that play a role, the formulas of the power and efficiency of an engine of highly idealized form will be given. On the assumption that the volumes of the hot (expansion) space V E and that of the cold (compression) space VC (Fig. 3) vary with the crank angle in a purely sinusoidal way, that both expansion and compression are isothermal at respectively TE and TC, and that all kinds of losses caused by the flow resistances in the tubes and regenerator, heat losses in the regenerator, and so on are ignored, the power P can be expressed as in Eq. (1).

(1)

Here = TC/TE, n is the speed in rpm, pm is the mean pressure of the pressure variation, and and are functions of the temperature ratio, swept volume ratio, dead spaces, and phase angle between the two swept volumes. Under these conditions the thermal efficiency is, of course, that of the Carnot cycle, and is expressed in Eq. (2).

(2)

See also: Carnot cycle; Thermodynamic cycle

Engine design
Actual engines have been built in the Philips Laboratories at Eindhoven, Netherlands, as prototypes in the range of 10500 hp (7.5375 kW ) per cylinder. After years of research on the Stirling engine, actual thermal efficiencies of 3045% (depending on the specific output and temperature ratio) and a specific power of 1.88 hp/in.3 (85 kW/liter) swept volume of the piston were obtained with the displacer type of engine equipped with rhombic drive, as shown in Fig. 5. In the figure the piston and the displacer drive concentric rods, which are coupled to the rhombic drive turning twin timing gears. The cooler, regenerator, and heater are arranged as annular systems around the cylindrical working space. The heater tubes surround the combustion chamber. In the preheater the gas at 1470F (800C) from the heater is cooled to 300390F (150200C) while heating the combustion air to about 1200F (650C).

Fig. 5 Philips Stirling engine in cross section. (Philips Gloeilampenfab rieken) Add to 'My Saved Images'

The rhombic drive mechanism allows complete balancing even of a single-cylinder engine and of a separate buffer

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space, thus avoiding heavy forces acting on the drive. The results of measurements on the first engine of this type, with hydrogen as the working fluid, are shown in Fig. 6. An approximate heat balance is output, 40%; exhaust and radiation, 10%; and heat rejection by cooling water, 50%. Control of engine output is by regulation of the pressure of the working fluid in the engine, while the temperature of the heater is kept constant by a thermostat; hence the efficiency shows little dependence on the load.

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Fig. 6 Test measurements for the Stirling engine. (a) Measured shaft power Pe and efficiency of a 40-hp (30-kW ) single-cylinder test engine with rhombic drive, plotted as a function of the engine speed n, at different values of the maximum pressure of the working fluid in the engine (pmax). 1 hp = 0.75 kW; 1 kgf/cm 2 = 98 kPa = 14.2 lbf/in.2 (b ) Power and efficiency of the 40-hp (30-kW ) test engine, given as a function of the heater temperature and as a function of the inlet temperature of the cooling water. The curves apply to n = 1500 rpm and pmax = 140 kgf/cm 2 = 13.7 MPa = 1990 lbf/in.2; F = (C 1.8) + 32. Add to 'My Saved Images'

The closed system of the Stirling engine endows this engine with many advantages and also some shortcomings. The continuous external heating of the closed system makes it possible to burn various kinds of liquid fuels and gases, without any modification whatsoever. This multifuel facility can be demonstrated with a 10-hp or 7.5-kW (at 3000 rpm) generator set (Fig. 7). The engine can operate on alcohol, various lead-containing gasolines, diesel fuel, lubricating oil, olive oil, salad oil, crude oil, propane, butane, and natural gas. Furthermore, it allows combustion to take place in such a way that air pollution is some orders of magnitude less than that due to internal combustion engines. Through the intermediary of a suitable heat transport system (for example, heat pipes) any heat source at a sufficiently high temperature can be used for this engineradioisotopes, a nuclear reactor, heat storage, solar heat, or even the burning of coal or wood.

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Fig. 7 Phillips Stirling engine with generator to demonstrate its multifuel capacity. (Philips Gloeilampenfab rieken) Add to 'My Saved Images'

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The almost sinusoidal cylinder pressure variation and continuous heating make the Stirling engine very quiet in operation. An engine having four or more cylinders gives a virtually constant torque per revolution, as well as a constant dynamometer torque over a wide speed range, which is particularly valuable for traction purposes. The present configuration makes complete balancing possible, thus eliminating vibrations. There is no oil consumption and virtually no contamination because a new type of seal for the reciprocating rods shuts off the cycle hermetically from the drive mechanism. Figure 8 shows an engine of this configuration.

Fig. 8 A 3-kW Stirling engine generator set. (General Motors Corp.) Add to 'My Saved Images'

Where direct or indirect air cooling is required, the closed cycle has the drawback that more heat has to be removed from the cooler than in comparable engines with open systems, where a greater quantity of heat inevitably escapes through the exhaust. If it is envisaged as someday taking the place of existing engines, the Stirling might be ideal as a propulsion engine in yachts and passenger ships, and in road vehicles, such as city buses, where a large radiator is acceptable. The system of continuous external heating is also able to open fields of application inaccessible to internal combustion engines.

Roelof J. Meijer Bibliography

R. Darlington, Stirling and Hot Air Engines, 2005 T. Finkelstein and A. J. Organ, Air Engines: The History, Science, and Reality of the Perfect Engine, 2001 W. R. Martini, Stirling Engine Design Manual, 2004

How to cite this article

Roelof J. Meijer, "Stirling engine," in AccessScience, McGraw-Hill Companies, 2008, http://www.accessscience.com See MLA or APA style

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