Abstract
SYNOPSIS An irreversible heat engine model with finite heat capacity of external reservoirs is presented for the performance evaluation of a Stirling heat engine. The external irreversibilities are due to finite temperature difference between the heat engine and external reservoirs as well as the direct heat leak loss between the source and the sink, while the internal irreversibilities are due to the regenerative heat loss and the other entropy generations during the two isothermal processes within the cycle. The power output is adopted as an objective function for optimisation. The expressions for maximum power output and the corresponding thermal efficiency are derived. The effects of various parameters viz. the effectiveness on the source- and sink-side and the regenerative heat exchangers, and the internal irreversibility parameter have been studied in detail. It is found that the effectiveness of the regenerator affects only the thermal efficiency while the effectiveness of heat capacitance rates of the hot- and cold-side heat exchangers and the internal irreversibility affect both the parameters. The effects of the internal irreversibility parameter are found to be more than those of the other parameters on the maximum power output and the corresponding thermal efficiency. The results obtained by earlier workers, which represent special cases, are presented.
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