12-12-2012, 04:12 PM
Stirling Engine
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Abstract
The quest of human beings to develop engines with high power, high torque, less vibration and most essentially with no pollution is on since the discovery and development of engine. Stirling engine is just one step forward towards the creation of a noise free and pollution less engine.
The Stirling engine is the engine, which uses a fixed amount of gas sealed inside a cylinder. The expansion and contraction of the gas, using heat from external source, creates the useful work. The main advantage of this engine is its capability to use any type of fuel and the emission of no exhaust gases.
Due to this pollution free and use of any type of fuel characteristics the Stirling engine shows a greater potential over any other type of engine existing today. To consolidate this claim an effort has been made to develop a working model of Stirling engine.
INTRODUCTION
All of us including the lamest of laymen would have at one time or another experienced problems with our vehicles engine and most of the time after moaning and cursing finally in line with the universe and accepting our doom we would have coughed up the cash for repairs and parts and insistently taken old parts home, disregarding the fact that no descent human would have wanted them and during this exercise in existence it is doubtful that anybody would have chance to miss seeing a piston or two, this ubiquitous creatures that scurry up and down in an enclosed cylindrical space, getting their crowns slammed regularly and unceremoniously…eventually to be thrown aside and replaced by a marginally wider chap. Doubtful that any of us would be able to imagine modern travel without an internal combustion cycle. Hell if we ask our mechanic if he has ever seen a vehicle without any exhaust then he is probably going to refer to you to the nearest shrink.
HISTORY
The Stirling engine (or Stirling's air engine as it was known at the time) was invented and patented by Robert Stirling in 1816. It followed earlier attempts at making an air engine but was probably the first to be put to practical use when in 1818 an engine built by Stirling was employed pumping water in a quarry. The main subject of Stirling's original patent was a heat exchanger which he called an "economiser" for its enhancement of fuel economy in a variety of applications. The patent also described in detail the employment of one form of the economiser in his unique closed-cycle air engine design in which application it is now generally known as a 'regenerator'. Subsequent development by Robert Stirling and his brother James, an engineer, resulted in patents for various improved configurations of the original engine including pressurization which had by 1843 sufficiently increased power output to drive all the machinery at a Dundee iron foundry.
STIRLING ENGINe
The Stirling engine is a heat engine that is vastly different from an internal combustion engine. Stirling engines have two pistons that create a 90-degree phase angle and two different temperature spaces. The working gas in the engine is perfectly sealed, and doesn't go in and out to the atmosphere. The Stirling engine uses a Stirling cycle, which is unlike the cycles used in normal internal combustion engines.
TWO PISTON TYPE STIRLING ENGINE
The two-piston type Stirling engine uses two power pistons. Out of the two pistons one is hot piston, which is used in hot chamber, and the other one is a cold piston used in cold chamber. The space above a hot piston is always heated by a heat source. The space above a cold piston is cooled always by cold air.
DISPLACER TYPE STIRLING ENGINE
The displacer type Stirling engine uses a power piston and a displacer. The space below a displacer piston is always heated by a heat source. The space above the displacer piston is cooled always by cold air. The displacer piston displaces hot air and cold air.