Advance on combustion-driven free piston Stirling generator with helical tube heat exchanger

Wang Xiao, Haojie Sun, Hangyu Ma, Guoyao Yu, Weijie Zhao and Ercang Luo

Energy, 2025, vol. 331, issue C

Abstract: Recent years witness dire need of high-performance portable power supplies due to harsh environment and thriving of outdoor recreation. Free-Piston Stirling Generator (FPSG) featuring in compact size, high theoretical efficiency, and multi-heat-source adaptivity, presents as a good candidate. The research proposes an innovative design of a helical-tube bundle heat exchanger, for the sake of a better coupling with a porous media evaporative combustor (PMEC). A balance between lightweight design and thermal efficiency has been achieved through thermoacoustics-based nodal analysis, on operating frequency and hot-end heat exchanger. Further investigation using three-dimensional numerical simulations of combustion-coupled oscillatory flow revealed significant three-dimensional loss features that were underestimated in the quasi-one-dimensional computations. The experiments demonstrated a well improved stand-alone specific power of 112 W/kg for the FPSG, and a maximum fuel-to-electric efficiency of 13.9 %, compared with 66.7 W/kg and 11.98 %, respectively, in our previous work. This study provides valuable insights into addressing the challenges of low efficiency in small-scale FPSGs operating at high frequencies, offering guidance for future improvements in portable power solutions.

Keywords: High specific power; Helical-tube bundle heat exchanger; High frequency analyses; Combustion coupled oscillatory flow (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:331:y:2025:i:c:s0360544225025812

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2025.136939

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