Woodhead Publishing The Air Engine: Stirling Cycle Power for a Sustainable Future

The Stirling air engine is the core component of combined heat and power systems, and is becoming an important sustainable technology in other areas. Increasing demands are being placed on the technology to further increase its thermal efficiency and specific power. This important book discusses how redesign of the regenerator can maximise the potential of this important technology. Key Features: contains previously unpublished insights into the pressure-wave and thermal-lag engines; deals with a technology offering scope for saving energy and reducing harmful emissions without compromising economic growth; identifies and discusses issues of design and their implementation. Contents: Part 1 A long overdue re-appraisal: The famous engine that never was; What Carnot efficiency? The counter-flow spiral heat exchanger Spirex; A high-recovery-ratio combustion chamber. Part 2 Living with incompressible flow data: The regenerator problem brought down to size; The regenerative annulus and shuttle heat transfer; The rotating-displacer air engine; The strange case of the self-regulating air engine; Some light on the inner workings of the thermal lag engine. Part 3 Working with the reality of compressible flow: New correlations for old; Regenerator thermal analysis un-finished business; Flow passage geometry; Beyond the performance envelope; For the sceptics. Part 4 Some design considerations: Scaling - and the neglected art of back-of-the-envelope calculation. 'How to make a business out of Stirling Engines today'.