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December 10, 2010

EAST
UNDERGRADUATE STIRLING ENGINE
FELLOWSHIP

Nicholas Randall |
Randall | Faculty Advisor Daniel Martinez, PhD
Nicholas Randall December 10, 2010

Purpose

The purpose of this project is to fabricate a walking beam Gamma type Stirling engine and test
the engine characteristics when operating using an external heat source. Additionally, the long-
term goals of the project are to understand the laws of thermodynamics as they apply to the
Stirling engine.

Introduction

One of the purposes of this project was to understand the laws and principles of a Stirling Cycle.
The Stirling engine works on the laws of thermodynamics mainly the first and second law. The
first law states that energy is neither created nor destroyed but it just changes form. The second
law states that heat would flow from hot to cold and can only flow from cold to hot if there is
work done upon it.

The other purpose of this project was to take the knowledge learned and apply it to building a
model of a Stirling engine. This project was based off an engine found on a website (Boyd
2005). This engine used a walking-beam configuration in conjunction with a gamma
configuration of a Stirling engine and was adapted for use with this project.

In 1816, Robert Stirling was awarded a patent for an external combustion engine he designed and
 built to help reduce the horrendous accidents that frequently occurr ed with steam engines boilers
that were in use at that time. Robert Stirling made an engine that did not require a boiler to run,
 but still used external combustion. After Stirling’s invention, the engines became widely used for
 pumping water out of the ground (Boyle et al. 2003). Stirling engines are undergoing a new
 phase of development using a number of energy sources, such as solar, geothermal, and biomass.
Stirling engines are used to produce electricity from the sun's energy by putting one part of the
Stirling engine in a device that will collect the sun's heat. Stirling engines have also been used in
a geothermal application to drive heat pumps for pumping hot water out of the ground (Lian, et
al. 2005). In biomass power plants a Stirling engine is used to recover heat that would be lost in
the combustion process and they are able to generate power from Stirling engine output (Obara,
et al. 2008). Stirling engines are used in either very high scale or very low scale applications with
little utilization in between. The ability to access the medium scale could allow for a number of
opportunities in thermal generation, electricity generation, and transportation. The reason Stirling
engines have been used in high and low scale applications is because of the power to volume
ratio. Some research has been done on making a hybrid car with an internal combustion engine
and a Stirling engine by using the exhaust gases to power the Stirling engine. The Stirling engine
only added 30% efficiency (Cullen, et al. 2009).

The Stirling engine requires two sources of energy creating a difference in temperatures. One
source of energy is created by using a Sterno gel fuel. The other energy source is a cooling
source at the top of the engine, which is ice. The purpose of having the hot and the cold source is
to create a pressure difference between the displacement cylinder and the power cylinder, which
will cause the power cylinder to move back and forth depending on whether there is an increase
in pressure or a decrease in pressure. When the pressure increases (expansion), the power

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cylinder gets pushed outward and when the pressure decreases (compression), the power cylinder
will get sucked inward.

Methods

Once all the preliminary work was done, the next thing was to choose a design to build an
engine. The design was based off a tin can Stirling engine with a walking beam with some
modifications (Boyd 2005). We used the gamma configuration, which consists of a separate
 power cylinder and displa cement cylinder. The di splacement cylinder will displace the air, which
will cause the power piston to move in a linear direction which causes the flywheel to turn. This
creates momentum which drives the engine.

Displacement cylinder assembly

For the main displacement cylinder assembly, instead of a can we used a 3” steel pipe for the
main cylinder. This made for some complications by using steel pipe instead of a can. One of the
complications was that with a can, you have one end already sealed. We needed to be able to seal
one end but have the other end accessible so that we could try different displacer pistons. This
was done by welding a plate on the bottom end of the pipe but there was trouble getting an
airtight seal at first. There had to be a grove cut in the plate so the pipe would sit down in the
 plate (figure 1). Also there had to be a bevel put on the outside edge of the pipe so the welding
 bead would have someplace to sit (figure 2). This was done by a professional welder (figure 3).

The top plate was bolted on using eight hex head machine screws. This process was done by first
machining the end of the pipe on the lath so the end was perfectly flush (figure 4). Then there
were eight holes drilled in the top of the pipe set apart at 45 degrees from one another (figure 5).
This was done by putting the pipe on a turn table that was bolted to a milling machine so the pipe
was standing on end (figure 6). Holes were drilled in the top of the pipe. Once that was done
there were threads tapped into the holes. The plate had to have a grove in it so that pipe would
 bolt down and seal properly on the plate. Once the plate was finished, it was bolted on to the top
of the pipe with a high temperature silicone to get a good seal (figure 7).

Power piston assembly

The next step was to make the power piston assembly which was made out of a bronze sleeve
 bearing and the piston was made from a piece of aluminum stock (figure 8). There was a hole
drilled and tapped in the side of the displacement cylinder about half-way up from the bottom so
the power piston assembly could be attached by screwing it into the displacement cylinder and
sealing it with high temperature silicone (figures 7, 9).

Displacer piston

The displacer piston was made from an empty tin can and a 1/8” brass rod. By only drilling two
holes in either end of the can and attach the displacer piston rod with silver solder on either end
of the can. The top steel plate had a center hole in it which had a 3/8” bolt running through it
serving as a guide for the displacer piston rod (figure 7). The first displacer piston that was made
was too small, so the displacer piston was changed out. The first thing it was replaced with was a

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 bigger tin can. The next thing was another tin ca n but instead of using a tomato paste can, it was
an imported mandarin orange can (figure 10) and the main differences were that this new can had
smooth sides and was a little taller.

After the mandarin orange can, there was a more direct approach at reaching the optimal size
displacer piston. Research was done to figure out the optimal ratio for the displacer piston to the
displacer cylinder. Then, the measurements that were taken from the engine were compared to
other engines that were researched. The optimal ratio was a diameter of 2 3/4”, a radius of 1
3/8”, and a length of 4” (table 1, figure 11).

The next can was an aluminum can. Because it was aluminum, it was light and smooth on the
sides. The problem with the aluminum can was that, as a displacer, aluminum cans don’t work as
well because they have a dimple on the bottom of the can which allows air to get trapped under
the can. To fix that problem, we used aluminum tape to tape over the dimple so that it was flat.

Assembly of the flywheel, walking beam, connecting rods, and structure

There was a structure created to hold all of the parts into place. The structure was made out of
wood and consisted of two masts and a base supported by four legs. The two masts, one
supported the flywheel and the other supported the walking beam. (figure 12). This was the
initial set-up, but there was trouble with this set-up so the design was changed by running tests
and figuring out which parts were causing problems. The base was modified by cutting off half
of it because having an open flame under a wooden base was a safety hazard. By cutting off the
 base, it allowed for the engine to be put on top of the flame so that t he wood would not catch on
fire. But this also caused a problem with having insufficient support for the engine. To resolve
this problem, there was an aluminum base made that allowed us to put the flame underneath the
engine and still be sturdy.

The original flywheel was found to be too heavy, which was made from hardwood. The new
flywheel was made from fiberboard. This flywheel was much lighter but had to be mounted in a
different way than the previous flywheel by using a collar and then putting a bolt through the
collar.

The original design for the mast for the flywheel was to have two supports lined up parallel so
that a shaft would run through them. But this caused problems with friction so with the new
flywheel just had one support. The mast supporting the walking beam had to have several holes
drilled in it so that the height of the walking beam could be adjusted (figure 13).

The old walking beam was a piece of wood that was thicker than it needed to be and therefore
added extra weight. The new walking beam was much lighter because it was much thinner than
the original. The walking beam was centered between the flywheel and the displacer piston rod.
Otherwise, the timing of the engine would be off.

One of the problems with the connecting rods is that they were binding and to help this problem,
we first bent the rods so that they were able to flex, but they were still binding at certain points.
The rods were replaced with wire to get rid of the binding problem, but this allowed the displacer
 piston to move from side to side and hit t he displacer cylinder walls.

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The other problem with the brass rod was that it was causing too much friction in the
displacement rod guide sleeve and to get rid of the friction a bigger hole drilled in the guide
sleeve. If the hole was too big, there would be a loss of power due to the fact that the pressure
was escaping through the bigger guide sleeve hole instead of going to the power piston to do
work. The final conclusion was to go with a thinner rod for the displacer piston so that it would
allow for some flexibility, but still have some rigidness to keep the displacer piston going up and
down in a straight line so it wouldn’t hit the sides of the displacer cylinder.

Assembly of the engine

Assembling the engine consisted of putting together the power piston assembly which screwed
into the main displacer piston cylinder and the displacer cylinder was screwed down to the base
for stability. The next step was to connect the displacer piston rod to the walking beam which
was done by connecting to a joint that had two pivot points to prevent the rod from flexing too
much and getting bound on the displacer cylinder guide sleeve. The walking beam was
connected to the flywheel by a double-hooked brass rod, which allowed the brass rod to pivot
around the flywheel. The assembly was tested without the power piston hooked up. The test was
to spin the flywheel gently to see how many times the flywheel would spin around without
stopping or getting hung up on something. After this it was time to hook up the power piston to
the flywheel then the engine assembly was complete and was in the test and debugging stage.

Results

Thermodynamics.

The second law is in effect by allowing for heat to transfer from the heat source to the displacer
cylinder. The first law is used to explain what happens in the Stirling Cycle. The first law states
that you can use heat energy to transfer into mechanical work. The Carnot cycle, being the ideal
cycle, does not work in reality because you’ll never use the full amount of heat that is put into an
engine. The energy input that you put in will never equal the energy that you get out due to heat
loss within the cycle.

Stirling Cycle

Understanding the Stirling Cycle was one of the key principles behind this project. There were
several weeks of research before the project was started. This was to understand the Stirling
cycle and terminology that goes along with it. The Stirling Cycle is made up of four different
stages. The process between stage one and two is isothermic. Volume is increasing, temperature
stays constant, and pressure is decreasing (compression). The displacer piston moves up. In the
stage between two and three, the volume stays the same, temperature drops, and this causes a
decrease in pressure (compression) which pulls in the power piston. Between the processes of
three and four, the volume decreases, the temperature is isothermic, and the pressure increases
(expansion) and pushes out the power piston. The temperature increases, the pressure is

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increasing (expansion), and the volume is isovolumetric. The power piston is at the maximum
outward push and the displacer starts to move up. The cycle repeats (table 2)

The objective:

During the process of building this engine, there were several problems that had to be overcome.
The engine would work when the displacer piston was moved up and down by hand. This caused
the power piston to move in and out accordingly. What didn’t work is the mechanical
configuration that was designed, due to the force that the power piston was putting out, was not
enough force to turn the flywheel a full turn.

The first thing that was done to improve the power output was to change out the displacer piston
in order to try to get more power by displacing more air. This works until the piston is too big
and it doesn’t have any room to move up and down, so there is less air getting displaced. To
figure out the optimal displacer piston size, there was a table produced by calculating different
ratios that were found on other Stirling engines of the size of the displacer cylinder to the
displacer piston (table 1). The result of changing the first displacer piston provided more power
 but was still too heavy and had a tendency to cause drag.

The changes that were made to the structure and components did not solve the problem of the
engine not running. However, they improved the performance and made it easier to see what
other problems there were. A result of changing the flywheel was that the flywheel was lighter.
This way was better in the sense that the flywheel moved a lot easier, but it didn’t allow us to
hook up anything to it. The next plan is to use a similar set-up but attach a pulley to the flywheel
so that it would be possible to hook something else to it. By changing the walking beam, it
helped to make it easier to line up the engine for timing. But, it didn’t make the difference
 between the engine running and not running.

F uture Plans
One of the future plans is to redesign the base for optimal efficiency. To have the engine placed
so that there would be no strains on different parts of the engine and to have everything perfectly
lined up to minimize any drag. One of the things that needs to be done is to raise the mast that
holds the walking beam so the connecting rod can be run from the power piston underneath the
raised walking beam because there was trouble with the piston connecting rod running into the
mast of the walking beam. This involved changing the setup for the flywheel so that the
connecting rod from the power piston to the flywheel would be straight.

Another change that needs to be made is to run thermalcouples to the engine so the efficiency of
the engine could be measured and it would also help to troubleshoot the engine so that the engine
would run. Another thing would be to change the displacer piston to a steel-wool scrubber pad
which allows the shape and size of the displacer piston to be changed. Also, the steel-wool pad
is a good thermal mass because it allows for air to rush through it when it is going up and down
as a displacer piston which allows a rapid heating and cooling. This is done by the fact that steel-

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F
Free piston- A piston that is not attached to anything mechanically. The piston moves up and
down by the increase and decrease of pressures in the cylinder.

Friction- The energy that is produced by when two contacting surfaces are rubbing together,
 producing the result of thermal energy.

G
Gamma Stirling engine- A different mechanical configuration of the Stirling engine. In the
gamma configuration, the displacement and the power cylinders are separate.

H
Heat engine- Needs heat to produce mechanical energy

Heat pumps- A mechanical device that moves thermal energy

Helium- A working fluid in some Stirling engines

Hydrogen- A working fluid in some Stirling engines

I
Isocaloric process- Is when heat does not transfer from one place to another place. Also known
as adiabatic.

O
Open cycle engines- When the engine’s working fluid is used once and then pushed out of the
engine. An example is an internal combustion engine.

P
Piston- A cylinder that moves in a linear direction inside another cylinder

Power- The amount of work done in a certain time period

Power Piston-  The piston that is used to convert energy to mechanical motion

Pressure- Force that is uniformly spread across an area. Often measured as pressure per square
inch (psi).

R
Regeneration -What happens when heat is moved by a working fluid thus cooling the area

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S
Schmidt Theory- The way calculations are made on the efficiency of a Stirling engine

Sink- A piece of metal that will absorb thermal energy

Stirling Cycle- How a Stirling engine works in principle

Stirling engine- A heat engine

T
Thermal efficiency- The measure of the device’s performance thermally

Thermal expansion- The amount that an object can expand by a certain amount of heat

Thermal Mass- The amount of heat that an object can store

V
Vacuum- Created by a change in pressures from a higher pressure to a lower pressure

W
Working fluid- The fluid or gas in an engine that carries heat so it can be reused in the
regenerator

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