Power-Optimized Sinusoidal Piston Motion and Its Performance Gain for an Alpha-Type Stirling Engine with Limited Regeneration

Mathias Scheunert, Robin Masser, Abdellah Khodja, Raphael Paul, Karsten Schwalbe, Andreas Fischer and Karl Heinz Hoffmann
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Mathias Scheunert: Institut für Physik, Technische Universität Chemnitz, 09107 Chemnitz, Germany
Robin Masser: Institut für Physik, Technische Universität Chemnitz, 09107 Chemnitz, Germany
Abdellah Khodja: Institut für Physik, Technische Universität Chemnitz, 09107 Chemnitz, Germany
Raphael Paul: Institut für Physik, Technische Universität Chemnitz, 09107 Chemnitz, Germany
Karsten Schwalbe: Institut für Physik, Technische Universität Chemnitz, 09107 Chemnitz, Germany
Andreas Fischer: Institut für Physik, Technische Universität Chemnitz, 09107 Chemnitz, Germany
Karl Heinz Hoffmann: Institut für Physik, Technische Universität Chemnitz, 09107 Chemnitz, Germany

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 17, 1-19

Abstract: The recuperation of otherwise lost waste heat provides a formidable way to decrease the primary energy consumption of many technical systems. A possible route to achieve that goal is through the use of Stirling engines, which have shown to be reliable and efficient devices. One can increase their performance by optimizing the piston motion. Here, it is investigated to which extent the cycle averaged power output can be increased by using a special class of adjustable sinusoidal motions (the AS class). In particular the influence of the regeneration effectiveness on the piston motion is examined. It turns out that with the optimized piston motion one can achieve performance gains for the power output of up to 50% depending on the loss mechanisms involved. A remarkable result is that the power output does not depend strongly on the limitations of the regenerator, in fact—depending on the loss terms—the influence of the regenerator practically vanishes.

Keywords: piston motion optimization; endoreversible thermodynamics; stirling engine; irreversibility; power; efficiency; optimization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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