Rhombic drive for type Stirling engines

Guide:

Prof. S.L. Bapat

Siddhartha Ghosh, Deep Gupta and Rajat Goyal.

11/10/07
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Stirling Engines
Stirling engine is a closed cycle engine. Power generated by heating and cooling of working gas (usually hydrogen, helium or air). External combustion engine.
Works on stirling cycle which consists of 2 isotherms and 2 isochors. A real stirling cycle is quasi-elliptical accounting for smooth motion
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Schematic of a Stirling engine

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Rhombic Drive for Stirling Engines

Advantages of a Stirling engine

Most efficient engine till date. It works on any kind of heat source, including solar energy, Stirling engines using palm heat have also been developed. The only practical machine with a theoretical efficiency equal to Carnot efficiency. Minimum pollution, heat rejected to the environment is very low in comparison to Otto, Diesel or Rankine cycle engines. Low emissions in case of fossil fuels burning. Very simple in design compared to other types of engines.
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Types of Stirling engine, Introduction to Rhombic drive

There are 3 types of Stirling engines
type, two pistons in separate cylinders, connected in series by a heater, regenerator and cooler type, displacer-piston arrangement, in-line cylinder system, this uses a Rhombic drive type, displacer-piston arrangement, separate cylinders. Though type is the simplest, it faces the disadvantage of sealing problems. and types are usually used in practical applications. In these two, has more specific power than type.

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Rhombic Drive for Stirling Engines

Rhombic Drive
Pink - Hot cylinder wall Dark grey - Cold cylinder wall (with coolant inlet and outlet pipes in Yellow) Dark Green - Thermal insulation separating the two cylinder ends Light Green Displacer piston Dark Blue - Power piston Light Blue - Flywheels
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The Task
Design and development of a Rhombic drive for type stirling engine. The task includes
Listing of various design and thermodynamic parameters associated with the engine and drive. Deriving an analytical formula for the overlap volume in this type of engine and finding out the overlap for optimum efficiency. Determining the specifications of various components of the drive and designing them.
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Analysis of a Simple Rhombic Drive

The Fig. shows the schematics of a rhombic drive. The bars 12, 1'2', 13, and 1'3' have identical length,, and are connected to the cross-bars 22' and 33' by pin/ hole connections. The crank throws 01 and 0'1' have identical length, r, and the crank centers 0 and 0' are at equal distance, d+e, from the piston axis. Analysis of the variation of the height of the expansion space, Ve , and the compression space, Vc, as the angle changes. The cranks turn at the same angular velocity which can be accomplished by two intermeshing counter-rotating gears.
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Analysis Of Rhombic Drive (Cont.)

Modeling the Expansion space height Ve, we get Ve Ce R sin L sin ..(1) where Ce he Similarly, for Compression space height Vc, V c C c 2 L s in (2) where Cc he hc Also, from the Geometrical Constraints, e R cos L cos =constt..(3) Now, using the fact that min.(Ve) =min(Vc)=0, and using the above 3 eqns., eliminating the constants,
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We finally get,

e V (LR) 1( )2 RsinLsin e LR
and,

Vc 2 L{ 1 (

eR 2 ) sin } L
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Rhombic Drive for Stirling Engines

Analysis of Rhombic Drive (Cont.)

Volume Overlap
The volume of the cylinder which is used both by the movement of the displacer and the piston. The overlap length , as can be seen from the figure, can be written as,

m Ve }m Vc Ve}2{ (RL) e L (eR) } ax{ in{

2 2 2 2

which is again obtained by using the previous eqns. Values of R,L and e have to be chosen such that we get maximum possible overlap ensuring that the cylinder volume is properly utilized.
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Analysis Of Volume Overlap

Developed a surface plot for the volume overlap in MATLAB Deduced the Maximum overlap from the surface plot. Chosen R>1.1L to account for any faults in the actual design.

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Rhombic Drive for Stirling Engines

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Compression & Expansion Volumes

The compression and the expansion volumes plots were generated in MATLAB The NonSinusoidal nature of one volume w.r.t. other shown by the graphs Volume phase lag between the two volumes deducted from the graphs at a particular instance of time (since it changes continuously)
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Schmidts Analysis
Isothermal analysis of Stirling engines Assumption: P constant throughout, perfect gas, T const. in each space The general Schmidts analysis assumes sinusoidal variation for both volumes Average Pressure, Work done, Efficiency are deduced from the analysis Optimization of efficiency based on the parameters like Temperature of cold and hot space, volumes and optimal volume phase lag is done
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Future Goals
To perform the modified Schmidts analysis for our engine, also taking into account the regenerator and other losses. To analyze the stresses/forces in the bars and finally reach to a working model. (If time permits..!!)

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Rhombic Drive for Stirling Engines

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