A CFD Analysis of the Air Flow Through the Stirling Engine’s Singularities

Houda Hachem (1) , Ramla Gheith (1) , Fethi Aloui (2, 3) , Sassi Ben Nasrallah (1) , Meihong Wang (4)

1 LESTE / ENIM - Laboratoire d'Etudes des Systèmes Thermiques et Energétiques [Monastir]
2 LAMIH - Laboratoire d'Automatique, de Mécanique et d'Informatique industrielles et Humaines - UMR 8201
3 INSA Hauts-De-France - INSA Institut National des Sciences Appliquées Hauts-de-France
4 University of Sheffield [Sheffield]

In this chapter, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD numerical model) of the air flow through a 300 cm3 Beta Stirling engine has been used to characterize the pressure drop and heat transfer through the regenerator. The Stirling engine had two moving parts (i.e. piston and displacer) which were at a certain phase difference but reciprocated at same frequencies. First, particular specific mesh motion strategies were developed using the software STARCCM+, to describe the motion of the power piston and the displacer. Heat-transfer models were implemented by taking into account the presence of two heat sources and the regenerator porous structure. The results are compared with experimental data. Heat transfer between the air flow and the matrix has been considered by varying the hot end temperature from 400 to 1000 K and keeping the wall temperature of the regenerator at 300 K. Regenerator properties such as matrix material and porosity are investigated.

Mots clés: CFD modelling; Stirling engine; Regenerator; Cooler; Heater

Domaines: Mécanique [physics.med-ph]

Houda Hachem, Ramla Gheith, Fethi Aloui, Sassi Ben Nasrallah, Meihong Wang. A CFD Analysis of the Air Flow Through the Stirling Engine’s Singularities. Exergy for A Better Environment and Improved Sustainability 1, Springer International Publishing, pp.271-287, 2018, Green Energy and Technology, 978-3-319-62572-0. ⟨10.1007/978-3-319-62572-0_19⟩. ⟨hal-03432775⟩