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Stirling Engine
Shahed Md. Abu Sufian, Kawsar Ahmed Sagar,
Muhammad Ahsan Ullah
Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering
Chittagong University of Engineering & Technology
Chittagong-4349, Bangladesh
sufian.shahed@gmail.com, ahsan_cuet@yahoo.com
Abstract Different processes that use energy and machines
that do work do not have perfect efficiency. So energy is wasted
from these processes in the form of heat. Power generating
stations, industrial processes, rice mills, brick fields and other
human activities are major sources of waste heat. Mud stoves
used in rural areas for cooking purpose produce above 85% of
waste heat. This wasted heat can be used to generate electrical
power using Stirling engine (SE). Stirling engine is a heat engine
that is operated at different temperature levels by cyclic
operation of compression and expansion of working gas. A DC
generator is coupled with the SE to generate electrical energy. In
this research amount of waste heat from significant sources has
been presented and theoretical analysis has been made to harvest
electrical power using a displacer type SE. Utilizing helium as
working fluid and a DC generator having 90% efficiency a SE
with displacer swept volume of 7.37 10-4 m3 can generate 80 watt
of electrical power at 115 rpm engine frequency. In this
mathematical approach the phase angle is 90o and the
temperature difference is about 150 0K. The setup discussed is
working as a personal power plant for each rural household.
Keywordswaste heat; Stirling
personal power plant; mud stove;
engine;
harvest
power;
I. INTRODUCTION
Energy that is not used for a systems purpose is wasted as
heat and escapes the system. Energy of billion dollars is thrown
away every year as waste heat. Of the 100 quadrillion British
thermal units (BTUs) of energy that United States consumes
every year, 50-60% is lost as waste heat [1]. Energy intensive
industrial processes occur at steel mills, cement kilns, furnaces,
refineries and at other industries. All these sources produce
waste heat that is emitted by heated exhaust gas and waste
steam. This waste heat creates a temperature difference
between the heat source and the environment. Using a wellestablished technology power can be generated from this
temperature difference.
Stirling engine (SE) is a closed cycle regenerative heat
engine operating on cyclic compression and expansion of
permanently gaseous working fluid at different temperature
levels [2][3]. Working on Stirling cycle, it converts heat energy
to mechanical energy. In 1816, Robert Stirling and his brother
James first invented and patented this engine [4]. In 20th
century Philips used the engine as a low power portable
978-1-4799-6062-0/14/$31.002014 IEEE
Durjoy Baidya
Department of Petroleum & Mining Engineering
Chittagong University of Engineering & Technology
Chittagong-4349, Bangladesh
durjoybaidya@gmail.com
Rice mills and brick fields are also very good sources of
waste heat. The thermal efficiency of the rise mills is very low
(15-30%) [10].The amount of heat wasted in brick fields is
about 50-60% [11].
In rural areas, mud stoves are widely used for cooking
purpose. The open fire mud stove has a very low efficiency of
15% [12]. The most efficient cooking system in the rural areas
is the Improved Cooking System (ICS) which is locally known
as Bandhu Chula, has an efficiency of 27% -29% [13]. Wood
chips, log wood, wood pellets are used as fuel in these stoves.
Log wood has net calorific value of 4.1 KWh/kg [14]. If it is
used as fuel in the improved cook stove, 10.48 MJ of heat
energy will be wasted by burning 1 kg of log wood.
A. Isothermal Compression
When the power piston travels inwards this stage occurs. In
this stage gas is compressed and volume is reduced which in
turns raises the pressure. The area between points 1 and 2
under the p-V diagram indicates the work done to compress the
gas, Wc. In this process heat is removed to the environment by
the cooled cylinder and the removed heat, Qc is the area
between points 1 and 2 under the T-s diagram.
B. Isochoric Heating
At this stage, the piston remains at its most inwards point
and the volume is kept constant. Heat is added to the gas and
its temperature is raised from cooling temperature, Tc to heated
temperature, Th. Gas pressure reaches maximum point, pmax.
The area between points 2 and 3 under the T-s diagram depicts
the heat added from the regenerator, Qr1.
Fig. 1. Work potential & waste heat losses from specific industrial processes
[9]
C. Isothermal Expansion
The expanding heated gas pushes the power piston
outwards and energy transferred to the piston is We which
equals the area between points 3 and 4 under the p-V diagram.
In this stage heat added from the heat source to the heated
cylinder is Qe and it represents the area between points 3 and 4
under T-s diagram. This stage also increases the overall volume
and lowers the pressure.
D. Isochoric Cooling
At this stage, the piston remains at its outer most point and
the volume is kept constant. Heat is absorbed from the gas and
its temperature is lessened from Th to Tc. Gas pressure gets
down to the minimum point pmin. Heat absorbed by the
regenerator is Qr2 and it equals Qr1.
IV. CALCULATION
Three types of Stirling engines are available. These are
alpha type, beta type and gamma or displacer type. In this
research purpose, displacer type SE is used as it has large heat
transfer area, works on low and medium temperature difference
and it is easy to be constructed. This paper evaluates the
following specifications shown in Table 1.
TABLE I.
Displacer
Working Gas
Helium
7.370 10 m3
4.127 10-4 m3
2.830 10-3 m3
1.459 10-3 m3
Expansion volume, VE
60.699 10-3 m3
Compression volume, VC
Heated temperature , TE
4.909 10-4 m3
463 0K
Cooled temperature , TC
313 0K
c= B/S = 0.3767
(10)
Indicated power,
W= {pmax VSE 3.1416 c (1-t) sina { (1 c) /(1+c)}0.5
/ { 1+ (1 0.160772)0.5}= 88.89 W
(11)
The frequency of the rotor is calculated from Beale formula
[16],
W= B n pmean f V
Here, mean pressure,
pmean= pmax / {(1+c)/ (1 c)} 0.5 = 676.9037103 Pa (13)
Rotor frequency,
(14)
Phase angle , dx
90
0.8
Gas constant, R
8.314 J mol-1K-1
Cooling method
Water cooling
(1)
(2)
6
pmax= n R T/ V=1.00610 Pa
V. IMPLEMENTATION
From practical data it is found that temperature inside the
mud stove is about 463 0K. Using water cooling system,
temperature of the top plate is maintained at 313 0K. According
to the theoretical calculation presented in this paper using this
150 0K temperature difference 80 W of electrical power can be
harvested from the waste heat of mud stoves. So, Stirling
engine is working as a personal power plant for each house its
implemented and people can use this electricity for household
purposes. Fig. 4 depicts a SolidWorks designed prototype that
can be implemented on mud stove.
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
-1
(12)
Specifications
Engine Type
(9)
Design Parameters
(7)
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]
[16]
VII. CONCLUSION
In this work, comprehensive research has been made on
potential waste heat sources. Using suitable method, energy
can be harvested from this waste heat. In this paper a prototype
has been simulated that can produce 80 W of electrical power.
So the energy wasted before in now meeting the electricity
demand of rural household. Stirling engine (SE) works on