Key Techniques for Designing Free Piston Stirling Engine

Hongshu JIA Guotong Hong Ning Cheng Wei Li

Key Laboratory of Space Energy Conversion Technology Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, CAS Beijing, China jiahongshu@163.com
AbstractIn order to satisfy the requirement of power system for deep-space exploration, key issues for designing free piston Stirling engine were analyzed. With the thermodynamic and kinetic coupling designing ideas, we designed a set of free piston Stirling engine whose output power is 100W at operating pressures 8bar, hot space temperatures 700K, and cold space temperatures 300K, operated at 50Hz with helium as working media. Fin structure was selected for heater and cooler to increase heat exchange area and improve heat transfer performance. Temperature distribution of the engine was analyzed. The calculated results indicated that hot space and cold space temperature kept constant value, and the regenerator had a higher temperature gradient. Clearance seal technology was used in piston sealing. Influence of temperature distribution on the deformation of the clearance seal structure was calculated, and the simulation results show that the maximum radial thermal deformation was 90m at the hot end of the displacer, and the maximum axial thermal deformation was 149m at the hot end of the regenerator shell. Keywords-Free piston Stirling engine; Design; Clearance sealthermal analysis

thermal deformation of the engine structure was analyzed by theoretical analysis and numerical simulation. II. Coupling design method of thermodynamic and structural dynamics

Thermodynamic cycle of free piston Stirling engine is completed by reciprocating motion of piston, which is produced by interaction of the solid components and the fluid flow between parts. There is no any joining structure between displacer and piston. It is necessary for free piston Stirling engine working at a harmonic frequency of piston-displacer 2 degrees system. Therefore, structural dynamics analysis and thermodynamics calculation will be needed for structure designing of the engine, so as to obtain optimal configuration. For free piston Striling engine with displacer rod passing though piston and extending to buffer chamber, natural frequencies of piston and displacer are given by:

d = (k d + pAdr 2 / ) / md

(1) (2)

I.

Introduction

p = (k p + pAp 2 / ) / m p

Stirling engines are externally heated, closed-cycle regenerative machine with the theoretical thermal efficiency equal to that of Carnot cycle[1-2], and have great application prospects in the field of military and civilian, especially an ideal power generator under some special environment. Generally, free piston Stirling engine is used for space station and aerospace, output power of which varies in the range of Watt to kilo-Watt. The engine with isotopes for heat source, works for several years without any maintenance, and the engine performance degradation never occurs [3-5]. There are many impact factors on designing of free piston Stirling generator, and any factor may cause the engine stop working [6]. All the design parameters affect each other. Therefore, all designed components must work together coordinately [7-9]. A free piston Stirling engine with 100W output power, 8 bar work presser was developed by coupling design method of thermodynamic and structural dynamics. The temperature of expansion chamber and compression chamber reach 600K and 300 K, respectively. Moreover, Heat transfer technology and

where, k d and k p are stiffness of springs for supporting displacer and piston, respectively. Stiffness of single planar spring is about 500N/m, and stiffness of double-layer and 3layer planar spring are twice and 3 times of single planar 2 2 spring stiffness, respectively. pAdr / and pAp / are stiffness of gas spring acting at displacer and piston, respectively. is the total volume when piston at middle position of piston stroke and is expressed as:

= E + 1 / 2 C + HD + RD + KD

(3)

where, E is sweep volume of displace, C is sweep volume of piston, the dead volume of heater HD , cooler KD and regenerator RD . p is the average pressure at working state.

Ap and Adr are across area of piston and displacer rod, respectively. m p and md are mass of piston and displacer,
respectively.

978-1-4577-0547-2/12/$31.00 2012 IEEE

In order to make the engine work at harmonic state, it is needed that frequency of the displacer equals to frequency of the piston. After dynamic analysis, structure size of free piston Stirling engine is estimated by according to Bill formula. Output power of the engine is given by

Pe = BnV0 pf
where, Bn is a dimensionless number and is expressed as:

(4)

Bn = r

TE TC TE + TC

(5)

where r 0.3 ~ 0.4 , f is work frequency, p is average pressure. Sweep volume of expansion space is given by:

VE =

Dcy s p

(6)

1 flexure bearing; 2 piston; 3 flexure bearing; 4 displacer; 5 cooler; 6 cooler cylinder; 7 regenertator; 8 regenertator inner cylinder; 9 heater; 10 fin. Fig.1. Free Piston Stirling Engine Diagram.

where, s p is distance of piston stroke. Thus, when the operating parameters are determine, the geometrical parameters of the machine will be determined, then, enabling the calculation of the Stirling engine thermodynamic and kinetic calculations, make use of the resulting pressure wave forms, do the coupling design, check the output characteristics of the prototype design; if the request cannot be meet, we must re-selection basic parameters, until the output characteristics meet the requirements. According to above idea, a set of free piston Stirling engine with 100W output power under the condition of charge pressure at 8bar, heater temperature at 700K, cooler temperature at 300K, operated at 50Hz with helium as working media. The engine is designed to endure 3MPa gas pressure. Figure 1 is the layout of the FPSE. In our design scheme, we adapt planar mechanical springs, fin configuration heat exchanger and clearance hermetical seal. These techniques ensure piston and displacer centric location and avoid wearing. The heater is made of copper in virtue of the highest thermal conductivity, and the material for cylinder is stainless steel. The heater is brazed to the regenerator cylinder. Regenerator is arranged in annular shape around displace within wire net stuffing and connect the heater and the cooler. The cylinder is designed as thin as possible to endure the maximal pressure with external strengthening rib whose width equal to the length.

III.

heat exchanger and temperature distribution

A. Heater configuration Heater decides the input power of Stirling engine, and it needs enough heat transfer area and small flow resistance, working at high temperature and high pressure, so it also needs suffer the working condition. Copper is selected for excellent heat transfer performance as heat exchanger components. High temperature alloy steel is selected as shell to bear pressure. Fig. 2 is the designed heater structure. Internal wall is cut into fin with horizontal drilling for gas passing.

Fig.2. Heater configuration.

Thermal penetration depth of heater is given by

= 2 / C p , where is Thermal conductivity of working media, is frequency, is density of media , C p is

specific heat at constant pressure. In our design, heater and displacer can cross together at their fin part when displacer moves to up end point of its stroke, and the annular gap below 0.2mm the fin thickness is 1.5 mm, and the working gas will flow to the regenerator through the openings.

B. Cooler configuration Figure 3 is the layout of the cooler, in order to increase heat transfer area, the cooler is also fins configuration made of copper by wire cutting.

gradient was loaded on the displacer and inner shell of regenerator during work process. It is difficult to obtain the thermal deformation of displacer and regenerator by experimental testing during work process. However, numerical simulation method could be used for estimating the value of thermal deformation. Titanium alloy Ti6Al4V was used for displacer and radiation baffle in the displacer, and Ni-base superalloy Inconel 718 was selected for inner shell of regenerator. Mechanical properties of Ti-6Al-4V and Inconel 718 are presented as Table 1 and Table 2, respectively. Constitutive relation of the materials obeys thermal elastic-plastic theory, and is assumed to be bilinear kinematic hardening model. Von Misses yield criterion was used, and the yield surface in threedimensional coordinate system is a cylindrical surface with axis of x=y=z. Any stress state inside the yield surface is elastic and anyone outside the yield surface would cause material yield[10].

Fig. 3. Cooler configuration.

TABLE I. Temperature (K) 300 573 773 TABLE II. Young s modulus (GPa) 199.9

MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF TI-6AL-4V Yield stress (MPa) 860 613 508 Linear expansion coefficient (10-6 /K) 9.1 9.2 9.5 Poisson ratio 0.342 0.342 0.342

C. CFD simulation Temperature distribution of the engine was analyzed by CFD software, the model includes finned heater, regenerator, finned cooler, expansion space at maximum volume and the compression space, using the axisymmetric model, charge pressure at 8bar, heater temperature at 700K , cooler temperature at 300K. The Fig. 4 shows the steady-state case, the results indicated that hot space and cold space temperature keep constant, regenerator has a large temperature gradient.

Young s modulus (GPa) 109.1 95.1 78.7

MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF INCONEL 718 Yield stress (MPa) 550 Linear expansion coefficient (10-6 /K) 11.8 Poisson ratio 0.3

Finite element model for thermal deformation is shown in Fig. 5. The model include regenerator inner cylinder(8 in fig.1)and displacer.700K temperature load was loaded at one end of displacer and regenerator inner shell, and 300K temperature load was loaded at the other end of the structures. The boundary condition of the outer surface of regenerator inner shell is decided to be adiabatic boundary condition according to engineering practice. Calculated results of temperature field, thermal deformation in Y and X direction are shown in Fig.5(b)and 5(c) .
Fig. 4. Temperature distribution of free piston Stirling engine

IV.

Clearance seal under condition of high temperature

Free piston Stirling engine in this paper does not have crankshaft-connecting rod structure, side thrust acting on displacer is so small in reciprocating motion process. Therefore, air gaps formatted by precision assembly could be used as a structural sealant, i.e. clearance seal technology. Clearance seal technique could avoid dry friction between displacer and inner shell of regenerator, so less wear debris was produced during work process, and the friction power is much lower. Size of gap used for clearance seal is usually 0.1% of the displacer diameter. Mating surfaces of displacer and regenerator inner shell must have higher hardness and high precision fits tolerance. In order to maintain the seal gap, thermal deformation of the mating surface must be controlled within a certain range. Heat load with large temperature

(a)

designed by coulpling structural dynamics analysis and thermodynamics calculation. (2) Fin structure was selected for Heater and cooler to increase heat exchange area and improve heat transfer performance. The calculated results of temperature field of the engine indicated that hot space and cold space temperature kept constant value and the regenerator hasd a relatively higher temperature gradient. (3) Clearance seal technology was used in piston sealing. Influence of temperature distribution on the deformation of the clearance seal structure was calculated, and the results show that the maximum radial thermal deformation is 90m at the displacer hot end, and the maximum axial thermal deformation is 149m at the hot end of regenerator shell, size of gap used for clearance seal is designed and completed by precision machining processing, which is a key step of whole engine manufacturing. References
[1] Walker G FO, Reader G. The literature of Stirling engines. In: Energy conversion engineering conference [C]. Proceedings of the IECEC-89 proceedings of the 24th intersociety, 6-11 August, 1989,2337-2340. [2] Duthil P, Bretagne E, Wu J, et al. Investigation of Acoustic Streaming in a Thermoacoustic-Stirling Heat Engine [C]. Proceedings of the Twentieth International Cryogenic Engineering Conference (ICEC20). Oxford: Elsevier Science. 2005: 375-378. [3] Kerdchang P, MaungWin M, Teekasap S, et al. Development of a new solar thermal engine system for circulating water for aeration [J]. Solar Energy, 2005, 78(4): 518-527. [4] Dochat GR. Stirling space power demonstrator engine test/analytical comparison [J]. Acta Astronautica, 15(6-7): 341-346. [5] Stirling engine development for space power : Parker, M. D. and Smith, C. L., Presented at ARS Space Power Systems Conference, Santa Monica, Calif., Sept. 27-30, 1960. 34 p. Illus. (1315-60) [J]. Solar Energy, 5(4): 144-144. [6] Chen Xi, Wu Wei-dong, Zhang Hua, et al. Effects of key parts on the refrigeration performance of free-piston Stirling cooler[J]. Journal of University of Shanghai for Science and Technology2008, 30 (05): 421424. [7] Rogdakis ED, Bormpilas NA, Koniakos IK. A thermodynamic study for the optimization of stable operation of free piston Stirling engines [J]. Energy Conversion and Management, 2004, 45(4): 575-593. [8] Atrey MD, Bapat SL, Narayankhedkar KG. Theoretical analysis and performance investigation of Stirling cycle regenerators [J]. Cryogenics, 1991, 31(12): 1044-1052. [9] Riofrio JA, Al-Dakkan K, Hofacker ME, et al. Control-based design of free-piston Stirling engines [A]. 2008 American Control Conference, Vols 1-12 [M]. 2008: 1533-1538. [10] Xu Zhou, Yao Shoushan. Principle of Materials Processing[M]. Beijing: Science Press, 2003.

(b)

(c) Fig. 5. Temperature distribution and thermal deformation: (a) temperature distribution of clearance seal structure; (b) thermal deformation in Y direction; (c) thermal deformation in X direction.

From the diagram, the first radiation baffle has much higher temperature and plays a primary role in heat insulation effect. Thermal deformation of displacer and regenerator is produced by temperature gradient. Maximum value of radial deformation reaches 90m and appears at high temperature side of displacer. Maximum value of axial deformation is 149m, and occurred at high temperature side of regenerator inner shell. According to the simulation results, size of gap used for clearance seal is designed and realized by precision machining processing, which is key step of whole engine manufacturing for next experiment testing. V. Conclusion Key issues for designing free piston Stirling engine were analyzed. The following can be concluded from this work: (1) A set of free piston Stirling engine with output power of 100W, hot space temperatures of 700K, cold space temperatures of 300K, and operation frequency of 50Hz is