Applied Science Research 12th Grade 10/21/07
Stirling Engine
Brandon Risberg Abstract: This paper includes a historical overview of the Stirling engine. It also includes an overview of the mechanics of a Stirling engine, and the results of the authors project to build a Stirling engine. Although this engine did not work, this paper includes ways to improve in future projects. History: The original Stirling engine was designed and developed by Reverend Dr Robert Stirling [1], a fantastic engineer and a reverend with the church. At that time it was called a hot air engine, no one knows when the term Sterling engine became widely accepted. Stirling received the original patent in 1816, and had his first engine built and working as a water pump in a quarry in 1818, and later powering an iron foundry in 1845. Stirling was trying to come up with an alternative to the current steam engine and later the internal combustion engine. The downside to the steam engine is the necessity to use boilers, which have the off chance to explode. Stirling sought to build an equivalent engine that would not have such a potentially deadly side effect. Although the Stirling engine eventually lost to the steam engine for popular support, it continues to be useful. The Stirling engine produces a higher efficiency rate than either the steam or internal combustion engines. However, it must run at very high temperatures to achieve maximum power output and efficiency. This limits its commercial utility and contributed to its decline. It is not entirely lost, however, Philips, the large Dutch electric and electronic manufacturer, began to design and produce a line of sterling engine based generators in the 1930s. Development continued through WWII till the initial batch was produced in 1951. However by then the market was being taken over by the electric engine and the company lost out on the design. Operation: In general, engines and heat engines work very similarly. They have involved the expansion of gas to power a piston to do work on the engine drive shaft. Both heat engines and internal combustion engines use this system. When the gas inside the piston is heated, it expands till its temperature drops to the lowers temperature used by the engine. This pushes the piston and does work on the system. Then the cool gas contracts and the piston retracts. The Carnot Cycle [2, 3] is a graph of pressure and volume inside a piston of a theoretical heat engine that is the most efficient that is physically possible between the desired temperatures. It involves four stages: heating of the gas, adiabatic expansion of the gas, cooling of the gas, and adiabatic compression of the gas. The Stirling engine is one of the few real world heat engines that come close to the theoretical efficiency of a Carnot engine. 1
Applied Science Research 12th Grade 10/21/07
Applied Science Research 12th Grade 10/21/07
The above pictures were created with a 3D modeling program called Caligari trueSpace. These images show a model of the engine. The design of the engine came from the template profile found on Dr. Danns website [4]. Specifications: Crankshaft 7 inches long with a inch depth. Crankshaft supports 4.5 inches high, 1.25 inches wide. Pressure Vessel and displacer 3 9/16 inch diameter. Displacer Bottom - 1.3 inches high. Displacer Top pin - 2.2 inches high. Stand - 3.5 inches high Efficiency, Torque, Power, Angular speed, and acceleration are all unknown since the engine did not successfully run. Conclusion: The final result was that the engine did not run. The authors group ran into several design challenges during this project. The first was that the temple called for a crankshaft that seems to be too deep. When the authors installed the displacer, it could not move inside the pressure vessel far enough to reach the crankshaft at every point in a rotation. The second thing was that when the authors drilled the hole in the pressure vessel side for the PVC elbow to attach, it caused the can to become squashed and oblong. This prevented the displacer from moving at all, and the authors group rebuilt 3
Applied Science Research 12th Grade 10/21/07 the engine a second time with a new pressure vessel. Also, the author cut a swatch of the balloon too small, and the pin could not move fully with out encountering resistance. The kind of glue that the author used to attach the crankshaft supports did not hold well, and made it impossible to seal the vessel beneath the supports, preventing it from being air tight. Because Sterling engines can run on any kind of burnable fuel, it does not require gasoline like the internal combustion engine. It can be used in many applications that require low to medium power output, such as conveyer belts and light lifting. So use of Sterling engines in the future may help us reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
Applied Science Research 12th Grade 10/21/07 Works Cited [1] Stirling Engine, Wikipedia, September 24, 2007, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine> [2] Carnot Cycle, Wikipedia, September 24, 2007, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnor_Cycle> [3] Carnot Cycle, Georgia State University, September 25, 2007, <http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/carnot.html> [4] Dr. Danns Website, Menloschool.org, September 14, 2007, <nova.menloschool.org/~jdann/ASR/>
