A CFD analysis of the air flow through the stirling engine’s singularities

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.