Journal of Power and

Energy

Systems

Vol. 2, No. 5, 2008
1254
How Does Stirling Engine Work?*
Tetsushi BIWA
**
, Yusuke TASHIRO
***
and Taichi YAZAKI
****

**Tohoku University,
Aoba-ku, Sendai, 980-8579
E-mail: biwa@amsd.mech. tohoku.ac.jp
***Nagoya University,
Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, 464-8603
E-mail: tashiro@mizu.xtal.nagoya-u.ac.jp
****Aichi University of Education,
Kariya, 448-8542


Abstract
In this paper the working mechanism of Stirling engine is studied from the
standpoint of thermoacoustic framework. The work flux measurement is performed
in a glass tube equipped with/without a regenerator-heat exchanger assembly. An
atmospheric pressure air confined in the tube is periodically perturbed by two
speakers at the same frequency (=48Hz) but out of phase. It is experimentally
demonstrated that the phasing of two pistons in the Stirling engine (alpha
arrangement type) plays the role in creating a steady work flux from the
compression piston to the expansion piston, whereas a differentially heated
regenerator in the engine operates as a power amplifier for the traveling wave
propagating up the temperature gradient.
Key words: Thermoacoustic Heat Engines, Stirling Heat Engines

1. Introduction
A conventional Stirling engine (alpha arrangement type) is schematically shown in Fig.
1(a), where two pistons on crankshafts periodically oscillate at the same frequency but

90 out of phase. The operation of the Stirling engine cycle has been traditionally
understood from Lagragian point of view[1]; gas parcels reciprocating in a differentially
heated regenerator installed between two pistons experiences an isothermal thermodynamic
cycle consisting of compression, heating, expansion, and cooling, resulting in the energy
conversion from heat Q to work W. We can estimate the energy conversion efficiency as
W/Q, independent of space and time.

Fig. 1 (a) Stirling engine and (b) thermoacoustic engine.

Meanwhile, although a looped tube having a regenerator-heat exchanger assembly as
*Received 7 May, 2008 (No. 08-0349)
[DOI: 10.1299/jpes.2.1254]


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shown in Fig. 1(b), has not any moving parts such as pistons to tune the timing for a
thermodynamical cycle, a gas column in the tube spontaneously starts to oscillate with a
traveling wave mode[2]. This device similar to the Stirling engine is one of typical
examples of thermoacoustic engines [3]. Thermoacoustic theory proposed by Swift [4] and
Tominaga[5] has provided successful explanation to thermoacoustic phenomena such as the
spontaneous oscillations in the tube with strong temperature gradient and acoustical heat
pumps[3,6]. In this theory, instead of heat and work being used in thermodynamics, two
kinds of energy flux, work flux I and heat flux Q, independent of time but space, are
adopted as basic quantities. We can estimate the energy conversion rate, named work
source, from divI (=w); w>0 means converting Q to I, corresponding to the spontaneous
oscillations (heat engines), while w<0 converting I to Q, corresponding to acoustical heat
pumps or energy dissipation. These ideas of the thermoacoustic theory may contribute to the
detailed description of some features of reciprocating heat engines such as Stirling engines
and pulse tube coolers.
In this paper, the roles of the phasing of two pistons and a regenerator-heat exchanger
assembly equipped in the conventional Stirling engine are experimentally studied from the
standpoint of thermoacoustic framework, through measurements of the work flux.
2. Experimental
2.1 Apparatus
The schematic drawing in Fig. 2 shows the apparatus in our experiments. An
atmospheric pressure air, which is at ambient temperature (290K), is confined in a glass
tube with inner radius R=19.2mm and whole length L=0.34m. Both ends of the tube are
closed with stainless-steel dynamic bellows which are attached to the oscillating diaphragm
of two loudspeakers, S
1
and S
2
, corresponding to two pistons in the Stirling engine. The
notation x is the axial coordinate normalized by L and the left end of the tube is denoted as
x=0. A sinusoidal voltage through a power amplifier from a function generator is applied to
the two speakers at the same frequency f but out of phase. The natural frequency of the
bellows (f=48Hz) is adopted as the driving frequency throughout experiments, being much
smaller than a resonance frequency of the tube. The displacements of S
1
and S
2
are written
as
) ( exp
exp
2 2
1 1
=
=
t i
t i


(1)
respectively ). 2 ( f = A gas column in the tube can be periodically perturbed by the two
speakers at the desired phase delay . The amplitudes of
2 1
and are individually
variable through the applied voltages to S
1
and S
2
but not measurable in our experiment.

Fig. 2 Experimental apparatus



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2.2 Work flux measurement
The work flux I is given by



where the acoustical pressure and the cross-sectional mean velocity are respectively shown
by t i p P exp = and ) exp( t i u U + = , and brackets indicate the time average. We
can determine I through simultaneous measurements of P and U [7,8]. The pressure was
measured by small and identical sensors flush mounted on the glass tube, while the axial
velocity near the center line, which is briefly converted into U, was measured using laser
Doppler velocimetry. The pressure and velocity amplitudes, p and u, and the phase
difference were calculated via Fourier transform from 4096 points time series.
In order to demonstrate the roles of the Stirling engine parts (two pistons tuned to

90 phase difference and a differentially heated regenerator), the work flux measurements
were performed in a glass tube equipped with/without a regenerator-heat exchanger
assembly as shown in Fig. 2.

3. Experimental results
3.1 Work flux in a cylinder without the assembly
The first step is to measure the work flux distribution along the glass tube without the
assembly (see Fig. 2), giving an account of the phasing of the two pistons in the Stirling
engine. In experiment, we tested three cases of phase delay, . 90 and , 0 , 180

=

Fig. 3 Experimental work flux distribution for (a) = 180 and (b) =0

(A) In the case of =

180
The ac voltages applied to the two speakers were so adjusted that the work flux takes
zero ) 90 (

= at the middle(x=0.5) of the tube to satisfy the request of symmetric property
of the system (S
1
and S
2
are in antiphase and
2 1
= ). Then, the standing wave acoustic
field was observed to be dominant all over the cavity; namely the phase nearly takes

90 except for a phase jump and the pressure amplitude is also nearly constant Pa) 340 (
everywhere in the tube, while the velocity amplitude u takes a minimum in the vicinity of
= x 0.6.
Symmetric work flux thus obtained in experiments is shown in Fig. 3(a), where a sign
of I represents its flow direction. The direction of I is toward the middle of the tube from
) 2 ( cos
2
1
pu PU = = I


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both speakers, showing the work flux of about 1.3W/m
2
emitting out of S
1
and S
2
and the
dissipation ) W/m 8 . 5 (
3
w due to surface attenuation in the tube. As long as
2 1
for
=

180 , it would be impossible to produce a steady work flux from S
1
to S
2
or from S
2
to
S
1
in it.
(B) In the case of =

0
When the applied voltages to S
1
and S
2
were so adjusted that the phase exactly
takes

90 at x=0.5 as well as the previous case, the work flux observed is vanished
everywhere in the tube as shown by open squares in Fig. 3(b). Therefore, the cylinder is
thoroughly dominated by the pure standing wave (

90 = ) without any phase jumps. It
would be impossible to create a finite steady work flux in such a symmetric arrangement
that two speakers have the same amplitude and are in phase each other.
As shown by solid squares in Fig.3(b), a finite but small steady work flux from S
2
to S
1

can be observed in an asymmetric arrangement ) (
1 2
> , where the acoustic field is
dominated by the traveling wave component; namely the phase takes nearly

180
and the pressure and velocity amplitudes are nearly constant( Pa 104 p and u 0.12m/s).
Such an arrangement inevitably produces a steady work flux, but as stated in the following,
it would never yield an efficient thermodynamic cycle to execute the energy conversion in
Stirling engines.

Fig. 4 Acoustic field for =90 ; (a) pressure () and velocity (), (b) phase between P and U, and (c)
work flux

(C) In the case of =

90
Experimental results are shown in Fig. 4, where the applied voltages to the two
speakers were so adjusted that the pure traveling wave phase ) 0 ( = is just positioned in the
middle of the tube as shown in Fig. 4(b). In contrast to the previous cases, the observed
acoustic field is dominated by the traveling wave component, showing the acoustic wave
propagating from S
1
to S
2
with almost homogeneous pressure and velocity amplitudes like
the sound in free air. However, the traveling wave thus produced by the phasing of two
speakers is significantly different from a freely traveling wave in the specific acoustic
impedance given by



where P
m
and c is the mean pressure and adiabatic sound speed, respectively. While we
have Z = for a traveling wave in free air ( is the specific heats ratio and 1.4 for air), the
acoustic impedance of the traveling wave, as seen from Fig. 4(a), is about four times as
large as at x=0.5. High acoustic impedance leads to significant reduction of viscous
) 3 ( ) / ( ) / ( c U P P Z
m
=


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energy losses near wall surface due to velocities. This is one of the important conditions
necessary to achieve an efficient Stirling cycle, in addition to the pure traveling wave phase.
In the case of (b), the phasing=

0 surely brings about a pure traveling wave phase,
thereby a finite steady work flow, but its acoustic impedance is only about twice larger than

, resulting in significant viscous energy losses compared with the phasing of =

90 .
As shown in Fig. 4(c), a large steady work flux can be achieved when the phase delay
is tuned to

90 . The flow direction of I is toward to the speaker delayed by

90 (from
S
1
to S
2
). The work flux of 20 W/m
2
is emitted out of the speaker S
1
and after dissipating the
energy of
3
W/m 2 . 3 w in the tube, the almost equal amount of 19W/m
2
is absorbed by
the other speaker S
2
.
We note that the

90 phase tuning between two pistons in the Stirling engine would

play the role in creating the traveling wave phase in the assembly, in addition to the high
acoustic impedance, and generating a large steady work flux from the compression piston to
the expansion piston.
3.2 Work flux in a cylinder with the assembly
The second step is to measure the work flux in the tube having a regenerator-heat
exchanger assembly (see Fig. 2), giving an account of the role of a differentially heated
regenerator in the Stirling engine.
A 40mm long regenerator (stack) made of ceramic catalyst containing many square
channels with inner radius r=0.4mm was sandwiched by two heat exchangers with wall
temperatures of T
H
(=523K) and T
C
(=287K). The assembly was so installed in the tube that
the center of the stack is just placed at x=0.5. Thus, parts were arranged in order of S
1
, glass
tube, T
C
, stack, T
H
, glass tube, and S
2
, toward to the positive direction of x. The whole
length of the tube was 0.66m including the assembly.

Fig. 5 Acoustic field along the thbe having a regenerator-heat exchanger assembly for =90 ; (a)
pressure () and velocity () (b) phase between P and U, and (c) work flux.

The air column at atmospheric pressure was periodically perturbed by the two
speakers at f=48Hz with

90 = as well as the previous case (c). The ac voltages applied

to S
1
and S
2
were also so adjusted that the pure traveling wave phase ) 0 ( = was placed in
the vicinity of the middle of the assembly (see Fig. 5(b)). Therefore, the gas parcels
reciprocate with the pure traveling wave phase in the stack and undoubtedly undergo a
thermodynamic cycle similar to the Stirling cycle if equilibrating at the stack wall
temperatures.
The dimensionless parameter is a measure judging whether the gas parcels have


Journal of Power and
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good thermal contact with surrounding solid walls or not; is the thermal relaxation time
given by r 2 /
2
, where is the thermal diffusivity of air. The value of in the stack is
0.66 at the mean temperature ( 405K), satisfactorily assuring an isothermal
thermodynamic process.
The observed pressure and velocity distributions are shown in Fig. 5(a). As the
assembly length is much shorter than a wavelength, the continuity of pressure and mass flux
is found to be satisfied across the assembly;
p p p
H C
+
with a small pressure loss p
and 79 . 1 /
C H
u u is close to . 82 . 1 /
C H
T T The subscripts H and C show the two sides of
the assembly, hot and cold parts, respectively.
The work flux obtained from the acoustic field is shown in Fig. 5(c), where the
direction of I is from S
1
to S
2
through the assembly as well as the case (c). The work flux
smoothly decreases due to the surface dissipation energy of
3
W/m 4 . 4 w throughout the
glass tube, whereas it drastically increases by about 14.6W/m
2
across the assembly
overcoming unavoidable viscous loss. The assembly has a positive work source about
3
kW/m 3 . 0 w showing the energy conversion from Q to I, which is generated through the
Stirling cycle executed by the gas parcels. If the cycle were performed isothermally without
any entropy production and an ideal gas is used as a working gas, the enthalpy flux is zero
in the stack and it has Carnots efficiency, therefore the ratio I
H
/I
C
should take the
temperature ratio of T
H
/T
C
. As shown in Fig. 5(c), the ratio observed, , 69 . 1 /
C H
I I is
significantly close to 82 . 1 /
C H
T T . We note that a regenerator-heat exchanger assembly
functions as a power amplifier for the traveling wave propagating up the temperature
gradient, whose gain is given by the ratio of I
H
/I
C
. In the Stirling engine, the produced
power, (I
H
I
C
), would be consumed as the output work
C H
R W I I =
2
including all
dissipative energies.
We tested the case of=

90 - that the displacement of S
2
leads S
1
in phase by

90 .
The obtained work flux is shown in Fig. 6, where the direction of I is also toward to the
speaker delayed by

90 . As the traveling wave propagates down the temperature gradient

through the assembly, the gas parcels undergo the reverse Stirling cycle making a negative
work source converting I to Q, in addition to the viscous loss. The experimental work flux
strongly decreases by I
C
/I
H
=0.52, which is significantly smaller than temperature ratio
T
C
/T
H
=0.55 due to the viscous loss. In the Stirling refrigerator, the work flux would be from
the expansion piston to the compression and the work
H C
R W I I =
2
must be
externally input to pump heat.

Fig. 6 Work flux along the tube having a regenerator-heat exchanger assembly for =-90

4. Discussion
The first challenge to the acoustic wave power amplification by heat was done by
Ceperley[9] in 1979. He used a long flexible tube having a loud speaker at one end, a
differentially heated regenerator along the way and a terminating resister at the other end.
However, the amplification of I has not been succeeded due to a low acoustic impedance
( ) Z . In 2004, Biwa [10] et al. have succeeded in the amplification by installing a


Journal of Power and
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Vol. 2, No. 5, 2008
regenerator ( 13 . 0 ) near the velocity node of a resonator, where the acoustic impedance
Z reaches about 15 times as large as .

Fig. 7 Work flux along the tube having a regenerator ( 06 . 0 ) for = 90 .

We tried to amplify the work flux using a regenerator made of a pile of stainless
screen meshes ( 06 . 0 ) usually being employed in Stirling engines. The experiment was
done under the same condition as the previous case. The results obtained are shown in
Fig.7, where the gain beyond one is not achieved due to strong viscous loss in the
regenerator. High acoustic impedance must be absolutely essential for an acoustic power
amplification. We are now interested in how Stirling engines realize such a high acoustic
impedance and also in how we get a higher Z overcoming viscous loss. We will report on
these subjects in near future.
References
(1) I. Urieli and D. M. Berchowits, Stirling Cycle Engine Analysis, Hilger, Bristol, UK,
(1984), Chap.2.
(2) T. Yazaki, A. Iwata, T. Maekawa, and A. Tominaga, Traveling Wave Thermoacoustic
Engine in a Looped Tube Phys. Rev. Lett, Vol.81, No.15, (1998), 3128-3131.
(3) G. W. Swift, Thermoacoustic Engines J. Acoust. Soc. Am, Vo.81, No.4, (1988),
1145-1180.
(4) G. W. Swift, Thermoacoustics: A Unifying Perspective for Some Engines and
Refrigerators, Acoustical Society of America, New York, (2002).
(5) A. Tominaga, Fundamental Thermoacoustics, Uchida Rokakuho, Toyko, (1998).
(6) T. Yazaki, T. Biwa, And A. Tominaga, A. Pistonless Stirling Cooler, Appl. Phys. Lett,
Vol.80, No.1, (2002), 157-159: Y. Ueda, T. Biwa, U. Mizutani, and T.
Yazaki,Experimental Studies of a Thermoacoustic Stirling Prime Mover and its
Application to Cooler J. Acoust. Soc. Am, Vol.115, No.3, (2004), 1134-1141.
(7) T. Yazaki, and A. Tominaga, Measuremet of Sound Generation in Thermoacoustic
Oscillations Proc. R. Soc. Lond.A, Vol.454, (1998), 2113-2122.
(8) T. Biwa, Y. Ueda, T. Yazaki, and U. Mizutani, Work Flow Measurements in a
Thermoacoustic Engine Cryogenics, Vol.41, (2001), 305-310.
(9) P. H. Ceperley, A Pistonless Stirling Engines-The Traveling Wave Heat Engine J.
Acoust. Soc. Am, Vol.66, No.5, (1979), 1508-1513.
(10) T. Biwa, Y. Tashiro, U. Mizutani, M. Kozuka, and T. Yazaki, Experimental Demonstration
of Thermoacoustic Energy Conversion in a resonator, Phys. Rev. E, Vol.69, (2004),
066304.