Possibility of Using Stirling Engine as Waste Heat Recovery – Preliminary Concept

Abstract

Growing consumption of primary fossil fuels and massive discharge of pollutants are some of the results caused by the world’s growing population, and eventually the enlarging energy demand. It is therefore the main concerns that the developing world must face nowadays are the energy shortfall and the environmental destruction. And for these valid reasons the awareness of reusing the low-grade heat has captivated researchers in recent years. Due to its unique features, Stirling engines, is a powerful candidate to recover the waste heat by converting it into power. However, Stirling engine shows a drastic performance penalization if connected with lower temperature heat sources and therefore research has to be done to increase the performance of the heat transfer in the Stirling engine. Exhaustive research has been done by many investigators to enhance the heat transfer characteristics inside the tube heat exchangers. However, the areas related to outer tube geometries with different materials and different fins attachment have not yet been explored and this part is the important factor for an external combustion engine to enhance the heat transfer. Thus, the development of Stirling engine as waste heat recovery needs to focus on identification of heat transfer enhancement methods that can be applied at the outer part of tubular heater in order to achieve an optimum performance of the engine. Starting from a comprehensive review of Stirling engine, this paper presented a rigorous derivation of a novel waste heat recovery system using Stirling engine with large power that can benefit the environment and in line with national GTMP. Such result will be very useful in the preliminary design of a waste heat recovery system using Stirling engine and can be used in the estimation of power output for many applications.