A Technical Introduction to Free-Piston Stirling Cycle Machines: Engines, Coolers, and Heat Pumps Lyn Bowman - Sunpower®, Ine. 6 Byard Street, Athens, OH 45701 Stirling Cycle Machines ‘The Stirling thermodynamic cycle can be implemented as an engine, cooler, or heat pump. In a Stirling cycle machine, a confined volume of gas is repeatedly expanded at one temperature and recompressed at another with the result that heat energy is absorbed from the environment during expansion and rejected to the environment during compression. Regardless of whether energy is being absorbed or rejected, more is transferred at a higher temperature than at a lower temperature. ‘Thus, the difference between the amount of energy absorbed at a high temperature and rejected at a warm temperature by a Stirling engine appears as the kinetic energy of its internal moving parts and as the mechanical, hydraulic, or electrical power it delivers to a load. Conversely, the difference between the amount of energy absorbed at a low temperature and rejected at a warm temperature by a Stirling cooler or heat pump must be provided to the machine in order to keep it operating. Tha duplex Stirling cooler, this power is provided by a directly coupled Stirling engine. Because it is externally heated, a Stirling engine can utilize any high temperature heat source, including biomass combustion, concentrated solar energy, or industrial waste heat. Invented in 1816, the Stirling engine was widely utilized by the latter part of the nineteenth century. Like the steam engine, another externally heated engine, it was displaced at the beginning of the twentieth century by internal combustion engines utilizing petroleum fuels as heat sources for Otto and Diesel thermodynamic cycles. Today, interest in Stirling engines has renewed due to the need to reduce the impact of fossil fuels on global warming. Besides their ability to utilize environmentally benign heat sources, modem free-piston Stirling engines also offer high efficiency, high reliability, low maintenance, long life, and quiet operation. ‘The opportunity to use the Stirling cycle for refrigeration was known as early as 1873, but by the 1 Stirling refrigerators were commercialized in the 1950's Rankine cycle refrigerators utilizing CFCs were firmly entrenched in most refrigeration applications. Consequently, Stirling refrigerators were commercialized in very low temperature range not well served by the Rankine cycle, most often for cooling military infrared detectors and for liquifying industrial gases, Recent June, 1993 50restrictions on the manufacture and use of CFC refrigerants have reopened opportunities for Stirling refrigeration in warmer food preservation and air conditioning applications. Besides using no CFCs, Stirling refrigeration technology offers the potential for higher energy efficiency than the current Rankine technology, since the ideal Stirling refrigeration cycle is more efficient than the ideal Rankine vapor-compression cycle, Basic Thermodynamics of Free-Piston Stirling Machines ‘The thermodynamics of free-piston Stirling machines is conceptually illustrated in Figures 1 to 3. Figure 1 shows the effect of shuttling a volume of gas from end to end of a closed cylinder when the ends are kept at different temperatures. The gas is displaced from end to end by the reciprocation of an internal part called a displacer. (The means by which the displacer is caused to reciprocate will be clarified by Figure 3.) By definition, a displacer is a reciprocating part that has a temperature difference, but not a pressure difference, across it. The absence of a pressure difference is indicated in Figure 1 by the loose fit of the displacer in the cylinder. When the displacer is at the cold end of the cylinder, the pressure of the gas goes up because the temperature of the gas goes up. Conversely, when the displacer is at the hot end of the cylinder, the pressure of the gas, which is then at the cold end, goes down because its temperature goes down Sinusoidal reciprocation of the displacer causes the gas pressure in the cylinder to vary sinusoidally with time a] oT } PHIGH | HGH Papi: Displacer Displacer Low Figure 1. Displacer Effect on Gas Pressure Figure 2 illustrates how this variation in gas pressure can be exploited to make a piston reciprocate, By definition, a piston is a reciprocating part with a pressure difference, not a temperature difference, across it. In Figure 2, an open cylinder contains both a displacer and a piston. ‘The ability of the piston to support a pressure difference is indicated in Figure 2 by its tight fit in the cylinder. ‘Thus, the piston confines a volume of gas in the closed end of the cylinder, 2 June, 1993,When the displacer is at the cold end of its travel, the resulting rise in gas pressure pushes the piston away from the displacer. Conversely, when the displacer is at the hot end of its travel, the resulting drop in gas pressure pulls the piston back toward the displacer. ‘Thus, sinusoidal reciprocation of the displacer causes sinusoidal reciprocation of the piston. Thai Displacer Displacer |} Figure 2. Displacer Effect on Piston Motion Figure 3 illustrates how the displacer is caused to reciprocate. The upper part of Figure 3 shows the pressure-volume (P-V) and temperature-entropy (I-S) relations that define ideal Stirling engine (1-2-3-4) and refrigeration (1-2-3'-4') cycles. The lower part of Figure 3 shows the positions of the piston and displacer, with labels for the relevant pressures, temperatures, and heat flows at four distinctive points during an ideal engine cycle. Each ideal Stirling cycle is a repetetive sequence of four heat transfer processes, two at constant temperature and two at constant volume. A rod attached to the displacer passes through a hole in the piston to expose the face of the rod to the pressure behind the piston. ‘The piston fits tightly to the rod as well as the cylinder. At Position 1, the piston begins to be drawn in toward the displacer (for reasons that will become clear below) reducing the work space volume and raising the pressure of the working gas from P1 to P2. During this (ideal) isochermal compression, the temperature of the working gas remains constant by the rejection of heat to the heat sink at temperature Twarm In practice, the space bbchind the piston is so large that the gas pressure there varies little from the mean pressure (PM). June, 1993Displacer = T warm WARM P1 Twarm: During the isothermal expansion process, the amount of heat energy absorbed by the engine is equal to the area under the expansion curve 3-4 on the P-V graph. (That area has units of pressure x volume = energy.) During the isothermal compression process, the amount of heat energy rejected by the engine is equal to the smaller area under the compression curve 1-2 on the P-V graph. The difference between the amount of heat energy absorbed and rejected by the engine appears as the internal energy losses of the machine and as the cnergy it delivers to an attached load. June, 1993In the absence of an external high temperature heat source, the temperature of the expansion end of a Stirling cooler falls to T= Tcotp 0 is the useful product. ‘The ideal Stirling refrigeration cycle driven by kinetic energy Qy-- Q¢-<0, may be optimized as a refrigerator for input Qi, or as a heat pump for output Qo. Therefore, the efficiency of the ideal Stirling engine and the coefficients of performance of the ideal Stirling refrigerator and heat pump are: = 25° % _ Teh se OTe n, Qe COP, stigerator QQ Te Tp Q& T, heat pomp Qo-Qe Te=T; cop, irling cycle machines do not achieve these ideal efficiencies, due to losses associated with temperature drops across heat exchangers, regenerator inefficiency, mechanical friction, viscous dissipation etc. In practice, compression and expansion processes are not isothermal. In addition, when a piston and displacer reciprocate sinusoidally instead of in the discontinuous fashion indicated in Figure 3, the corners of the P-V work diagrams are rounded off, reducing the associated areas. Sunpower's expertise in the theory and practice of free-piston Stirling cycle machines enables Sunpower to minimize these sources of loss so as to achieve much higher thermodynamic efficiencies than do competing firms. 6 June, 1993Kinematic and Free Piston Stirling Cycle Machines The necessary timing of the compression, heating, expansion, and cooling processes in a Stirling cycle machine is achieved in either of two distinctive ways. Kinematic Stirling cycle machines are characterized by a crank and piston rods which mechanically link the motion of the piston and isplacer into a fixed phase relationship. In some kinematic machines, a shaft connected to the crank also penetrates the pressure vessel in order to deliver power to an external load. Such mechanical linkages introduce several problems which degrade the performance, reliability, and lifetime of these machines. Since the performance of Stirling cycle machines is proportional to the mean pressure of the working gas, leakage of high pressure working gas out of the machine through seals where the shaft penetrates the pressure vessel progressively degrades performance. Kinematic machines also require frequent maintainance of heat exchangers fouled by oil lubricating the mechanism. The piston and cylinder in a kinematic machine also suffer wear due to the side- loads imposed by the mechanical linkage. By contrast, the piston and displacer in Sunpower's free-piston Stirling cycle machines are harmonic mechanical oscillators. Sunpower controls the frequency and phase of these oscillations through precise understanding by the physics of the inertial, spring, and damping forces acting on these parts. Commonly, the piston is equipped with magnets to couple power to the external world by magnetic or electromagnetic forces. Magnets on the compression piston can be magnetically coupled to magnets on an external reciprocating shaft for mechanical output or input power, or reciprocation of the piston magnets within an electric coil generates alternating electrical power in an engine or absorbs alternating electric power in a cooler. No mechanical linkage penetrates the hermetically sealed pressure vessel, eliminating the leakage of working fluid. The absence of the kinematic mechanism also eliminates the sideloads on the piston and displacer so that wear can be completely eliminated by gas bearings that levitate the piston and displacer off of the cylinder surface, As a result, Sunpower's free-piston Stirling cycle machines offer the potential for long life and high reliability without maintenance. June, 1993