Active Stirling engine

Gopal, Vinod Kumar; Duke, R.; Clucas, Don

doi:10.1109/tencon.2009.5395807

Cited by 8 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 1 publication

(1 reference statement)

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“…Related recent work on control-oriented modeling of a Stirling engine was done in Refs. [2][3][4][5], while the concept of an Active Stirling Engine [6] has been recently proposed. This latter concept is similar to our current work, where the displacer piston motion is the control input.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimal Periodic Control of an Ideal Stirling Engine Model

Craun

Bamieh

2015

Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control

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We consider an optimal control problem for a model of a Stirling engine that is actively controlled through its displacer piston motion. The framework of optimal periodic control (OPC) is used as the setting for this active control problem. We use the idealized isother-mal Schmidt model for the system dynamics and formulate the control problem so as to maximize mechanical power output while trading off a penalty on control (displacer motion) effort. An iterative first-order algorithm is used to obtain the optimal periodic motion of the engine and control input. We show that optimal motion is typically nonsinu-soidal with significant higher harmonic content, and that a significant increase in the power output of the engine is possible through the optimal scheduling of the displacer motion. These results indicate that OPC may provide a framework for a large class of energy conversion and harvesting problems in which active actuation is available. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4029682]

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimal Periodic Control of an Ideal Stirling Engine Model

Craun

Bamieh

2015

Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control

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“…where P mean is the static engine absolute pressure (one atmosphere for non pressurized engines), V max is the maximum volume as given by Equation (9) (V max = V t (180) in the case of the beta engine) and T room is the room absolute temperature, that is, the temperature at which the engine was first pressurized. As we already have the total volume, we can now find the engine's P-V diagram (as predicted by the Schmidt equation) by using Equation (4) in the X axis and Equation (13) in the Y axis.…”

Section: Beta With Crankshaft Drivementioning

confidence: 99%

Stirling Engine Configuration Selection

Egas

Clucas

2018

Energies

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Unlike internal combustion engines, Stirling engines can be designed to work with many drive mechanisms based on the three primary configurations, alpha, beta and gamma. Hundreds of different combinations of configuration and mechanical drives have been proposed. Few succeed beyond prototypes. A reason for poor success is the use of inappropriate configuration and drive mechanisms, which leads to low power to weight ratio and reduced economic viability. The large number of options, the lack of an objective comparison method, and the absence of a selection criteria force designers to make random choices. In this article, the pressure-volume diagrams and compression ratios of machines of equal dimensions, using the main (alpha, beta and gamma) crank based configurations as well as rhombic drive and Ross yoke mechanisms, are obtained. The existence of a direct relation between the optimum compression ratio and the temperature ratio is derived from the ideal Stirling cycle, and the usability of an empirical low temperature difference compression ratio equation for high temperature difference applications is tested using experimental data. It is shown that each machine has a different compression ratio, making it more or less suitable for a specific application, depending on the temperature difference reachable.

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“…A more recent concept is that of the actively controlled Stirling engine [9,12], where the displacer's motion is directly actuated by a control actuator whose motion can be designed to optimize the engine [9].…”

Section: Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Due to their ability to use any heat source, there has been a resurgent interest in using Stirling engines for utilization of solar thermal power [2][3][4], as well as in micro-combined heat and power applications [5][6][7][8] (with at least one recent commercial offering by Whispergen V R , which produces household scale, Stirling engine-based micro-combined heat and power units). On the research side, there has also been a recent surge of interest in the dynamics and control of Stirling engines [5,[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. Given the important role that electronic controls have had in improving the performance of the internal combustion engine in the past few decades [17], it is arguable that control engineering can have a significant impact on performance of analogously modern versions of the Stirling engine.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Control-Oriented Modeling of the Dynamics of Stirling Engine Regenerators

Craun

Bamieh

2017

Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control

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We develop a first-principles model of the regenerator component of a generic Stirling engine. The model is based on the Euler equations of one-dimensional gas dynamics coupled with its convective/conductive heat transfer with the embedded mesh material. We investigate various methods for deriving simpler and low-order control-oriented models from this first principles model, the basic criterion being high fidelity representation of the dynamics of the regenerator when coupled to other dynamic components of the engine. We identify several nondimensional parameters that potentially categorize different modes of operation, and investigate the corresponding time-scale separation. A hierarchy of singularly perturbed models is derived in which acoustic dynamics are eliminated, periodic mesh dynamics are averaged, and the shape of the distributed regenerator gas state is approximated. In addition, since the reduced model is to be operated cyclically when connected to other parts of the engine, we develop such a feedback-aware model reduction algorithm based on a proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) with a chirped signal input (chirp-POD). This algorithm yields reduced models that are accurate over a range of engine operating frequencies.

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Active Stirling engine

Cited by 8 publications

References 1 publication

Optimal Periodic Control of an Ideal Stirling Engine Model

Optimal Periodic Control of an Ideal Stirling Engine Model

Stirling Engine Configuration Selection

Control-Oriented Modeling of the Dynamics of Stirling Engine Regenerators

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