Stirling engine

Author: Steve Randall

Abstract. This report will make a comparison between an actual Stirling cycle and an ideal Stirling cycle. How much energy is lost in an actual Stirling engine? The engine running with 28.5 watts of input power shows a 98.7% energy loss with a thermal efficiency of 1.22%. The same engine running at 50.2 watts shows improvement at a 94% energy loss with a thermal efficiency of 5.95%. This report includes a full description of the Stirling engine, along with illustrations of a working Stirling engine. Report also includes discussion on possible applications of Stirling engines such as solar power, alternative fuel sources and refrigeration.

INTRODUCTION:
The Stirling engine is a mechanical device that converts a temperature difference into mechanical movement. The engine was invented by Rev. Dr. Robert Stirling; it was originally created to replace dangerous steam engines which had a tendency to explode if the boiler pressure became too high. Stirling was not the first to use this concept to make an engine, but he was the first to realize the idea of what he called the economizer which is known today as a regenerator. Stirling patented this type of engine in 1816. The regenerator greatly improved the efficiency of the engine giving it many more applications than previous years. However the engine was phased out once the electric motor was invented. There are three basic types of Stirling engines an alpha Stirling, beta Stirling and a gamma Stirling. The alpha Stirling uses two pistons in separate cylinders, each cylinder with a hot and cold heat exchanger. This type of engine has a high power-to-volume ratio, but because the cylinders are separate the hot side has a tendency to become too hot. This overheating would cause leaks, resulting in engine failure. A beta Stirling has the power piston and displacer both contained in one cylinder. The gamma Stirling is basically the same as a beta Stirling, except the power piston is mounted next to

the displacement cylinder. This type of Stirling engine is the most common type and will be the primary topic of discussion throughout this analysis. Figure 1 shows an illustration of a typical gamma style Stirling engine, made using common materials and is similar to the one used in this analysis.

Figure 1. Gamma style Stirling Engine

The Stirling engine operates on 2 basic principles: 1.) If you have a gas at constant volume and the temperature is raised the pressure will increase. 2.) Conversely if you decrease the volume of the gas the pressure and temperature will increase.

These principles are applied to a Stirling engine by using a power piston a displacer piston, a hot section and a cold section. The power piston is in a tightly sealed cylinder; the displacer is in a larger cylinder and is kept loose so air can move between the 2 sections of the engine. Typically the top of the displacer cylinder is the cold section and the bottom is the hot section. Both pistons are connected by a crankshaft with 90 degree offsets. The idea is that when the gas in the engine is heated it increases the total pressure in the engine pushing up on the power piston also making the displacer move down. It is important that the pistons are offset slightly because as the displacer moves down it moves all the hot gas to the top of the engine which is cold causing the gas to cool. The cooling of the gas causes a decrease in pressure making it easy for the power piston to come back down. Then the

displacer moves back up pushing the gas down to the hot section where it is heated again and the cycle repeats. Figure 2 shows the changes in pressure and volume at each stage of the cycle.

Figure 2. Pressure volume diagram of an Ideal Stirling cycle. (Haywood)

OBJECTIVES:
To determine the thermodynamic efficiency of an actual Stirling engine.

PROCEDURE OR METHODS:
First data from a functioning Stirling engine is collected. In order to make a reasonable analysis 2 types of data are needed, work and temperature. The work that the engine does on the crankshaft is the work out and the work going into the engine in the form of heat. The work is energy per unit time; in this case it will be joules per sec also known as a watt. There are also 2 temperatures, a high temperature and a low temperature. The temperature is measured at the ice reservoir and at the base of the can where the heat is generated. The more accurate these measurements are, the closer the ideal

efficiency will be to the actual efficiency. To determine the actual thermal efficiency the following equation is used:

th =

Wout Qin

(1)

The work input or Win can be substituted for Qin in the equation. This equation will yield a ratio of the work output to the work input or heat input. The thermodynamic efficiency of an ideal Stirling engine can be found by using the equation for the Carnot cycle:

th = 1

TL TH

(2)

The Carnot cycle assumes total reversibility as does an ideal Stirling cycle, this is why the Carnot efficiency can be used to find the ideal Stirling efficiency. However Carnot efficiency is not the most accurate when dealing with a real Stirling engine. In a real Stirling engine there are many irreversibilitys such as friction heat and gas pressure. To account for the temperature variance at the hot and cold sections of the engine, the equation for ideal efficiency is still used. However the low temperature is increased by 10% and the high temperature is decreased by 10% before put into the ideal efficiency equation. To find the corrected temperature at TL the following equation is used:

TLVariation = (TL 10%)

This variation is then added to TL

(3)

For TH the same calculation is made the only difference is that the T H variance is subtracted from TH.

TH Variation = (TH 10%)

(4)

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION:

The engine running with 28.5 watts of input power shows a 98.7% energy loss with a thermal efficiency of 1.22%. The same engine running at 50.2 watts shows improvement at a 94% energy loss with a thermal efficiency of 5.95%. These efficiencies are low when compared an ideal thermal efficiency of 34.5% and 44% respectively. Figure 3 gives a good visual representation of the data, showing the difference in Carnot and actual engine efficiencies.

Engine Efficiency vs. Work Input

0.5 0.45 0.4 Engine Efficiency 0.35 0.3 0.25 0.2 0.15 0.1 0.05 0 28.5 50.2 Work Input (watts) Ideal Engine Effciency Actual Engine Effciency

Figure 3. Engine Efficiency vs. Work Input

The low experimental engine efficiency is due to the design of the engine and accuracy of measurements. The engine used was poorly insulated allowing a large amount of heat to escape. This thermal inefficiency of the engine caused a decrease in the temperature difference for T H and TL. The measurements for TH were taken outside the cylinder however the temperature around the displacer is

slightly lower than the temperature of the cylinder. As a result the actual T H should be slightly lower than the measured TH. TL is assumed to be room temperature, but this is only true if the all the heat is removed from the cold section of the engine. This would suggest that T L is slightly higher than the recorded value. These variations in the measurement of T H and TL suggests a smaller temperature difference, this changes the ideal thermal efficiencies to be slightly lower than the calculated efficiencies of 34.5% and 44%. The regenerator used could have also contributed to the large loss of energy. As discussed earlier The Stirling engine was not perfected until Robert Stirling developed the regenerator in 1816 which greatly increased the efficiency. The regenerator holds heat in the hot section of the engine, if the regenerator used in the experiment is not retaining heat this could significantly reduce engine performance. The results yielded a large difference in engine efficiencies when comparing the ideal and actual efficiency. In order to give a better Idea of the actual engine efficiency verses the ideal efficiency an estimated correction will be made. The correction assumes a 10% variation in temperature. This is assumed because the temperatures that were taken could not be taken from inside the engine and also due to the incomplete heat dissipation of the diffuser at the cold section. The assumption will be a 10% increase in temperature at TL and a 10% decrease in temperature at TH. This 10% variance in temperature results in an ideal efficiency of 19% at 28.5 watts and 32% at 50.2 watts. This decrease in Ideal efficiency is shown in figure 4.

Temperature Correction
0.35 0.3 0.25 0.2 0.15 0.1 0.05 0 1 2 Work Input (w atts) 3

Engine Effciency

Temperature Correction Actual Engine Effciency

Figure 4. Temperature Correction Engine Efficiency vs. Work Input

The Stirling engine used in the experiment is not a good example of the modern Stirling engines made today. A properly constructed Stirling engine has a much higher efficiency. A Stirling engine has many applications ranging from a small discussion piece to generating electricity. On august 8, 2005 President Bush signed an energy bill with Southern California Edison to install 4,600 acres of solar arrays. The solar arrays collect the heat from the sun, focusing it onto the heat input part of Stirling engine. The Stirling engine is then connected to a generator. The system in Southern California will be generating 500 megawatts of power. This system has a much higher efficiency than that of a normal solar collector. A Stirling engine combined with a generator has a solar to electric efficiency of up to 30%. Other applications include submarine engines, aircraft, automobiles and refrigeration. The engines high efficiency and reversibility allows it to be used to remove heat from a source. The Stirling engine is very quiet and produces no pollution giving it a lot of potential as a future energy source.

CONCLUSION:
How much energy is lost in an actual Stirling engine? The analysis made indicates that there is between a 94% and a 98.7% energy loss for the actual Stirling engine. The thermal efficiency is between 1.22% and 5.95%. This low efficiency is due to poor engine design and a lack of materials. Further testing using a more insulated engine and higher quality materials may result in higher engine efficiency.

REFERENCES:
Book: engel, Yunus A. & Boles A, Michael. New York, N.Y.: 2006. Thermodynamics An Engineering Approach. 5th ed. McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Online Source: Wikipedia. 2006. Stirling Engine: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine Accessed 6 April 2006.

Online Source 2: Allan, Sterling D. 2004. Stirling Engine: 2002-2006. PES Network Inc. Available at: http://www.freeenergynews.com/Directory/StirlingEngine/ Accessed 19 April 2006. Online Source 3: Haywood, David. 2004 An Introduction to Stirling Cycle Machines. Available at: http://www.mech.canterbury.ac.nz/documents/sc_intro.pdf. Accessed 19 April 2006.

Online Source 4:

Dobos, Aron. Kader, Adem. Park, Brian. Bond, Brendan 2004. Characterization of a Gamma-Type Stirling Engine. Available at: http://www.engin.swarthmore.edu/~adobos1/e41/lab5/ Accessed 20 April 2006.

APPENDIX:
See Engine Analysis for details on efficiency and energy loss. Variance Estimate AutoCAD Webpage: http://www.personal.psu.edu/students/s/c/scr170/ Stirling Engine Animation (DVD)

Engine Analysis
ENGINE DATA AT 28.5 WATTS:
Wout = pv cycles / s

Wout = .61 .57cycles / s = .35watts Qin Win = 28.5watts

TH = 177.5C + 273 = 450.5k TL = 22C + 273 = 295k

ACTUAL ENGINE EFFICIENCY:

th =
Wou t Qin
th =
.35W = .0122 = 1.22% 28.5W

ENERGY LOSS:
energyloss = Win Wout
energyloss = 28.5W .35W = 28.15W %energyloss = 28.1W / 28.5W = 98.7%

IDEAL ENGINE EFFICIENCY:

th = 1
TL TH
th = 1
295k = .345 = 34.5% 450.5k

ENGINE DATA AT 50.2 WATTS:

Wout = pv cycles / s

Wout = 2.99 .99cycles / s = 2.98watts Qin Win = 50.2 watts

TH = 254C + 273 = 527 k TL = 22C + 273 = 295k

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ACTUAL ENGINE EFFICIENCY:

th =
Wou t Qin
th =
2.98W = .0595 = 5.95% 50.2W

ENERGY LOSS:
energyloss = Win Wout
energyloss = 50.2W 2.98W = 47.22W %energyloss = 47.22W / 50.2W = 94%

IDEAL ENGINE EFFICIENCY:

th = 1
TL TH
th = 1
295k = .44 = 44% 527k

Variance Estimate

IDEAL EFFICIENCY CORRECTION AT 28.5 WATTS:

TLVariation = (TL 10%) TLVariation = (295k 10%) = 29.5k
CorrectedTL = 295k + 29.5k = 324.5k

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TH Variation = (TH 10%) TH Variation = ( 450.5k 10%) = 45.05k

CorrectedTH = 450.5k 45.05k = 405.45k

th = 1
th = 1

TL TH

324.5k = .19 = 19% 405.45k

IDEAL EFFICIENCY CORRECTION AT 50.2 WATTS:

TLVariation = (TL 10%) TLVariation = (295k 10%) = 29.5k
CorrectedTL = 295k + 29.5k = 324.5k

TH Variation = (TH 10%) TH Variation = (527 k 10%) = 52.7 k

CorrectedTH = 527k 52.7 k = 474.3k

th = 1
th = 1

TL TH

324.5k = .32 = 32% 474.3k

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