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Addressing the challenge of climate change requires the large-scale development of significant renewable energy generation, but also requires these intermittent energy sources to be balanced by energy storage or demand management to maintain a reliable electric grid. In addition, a centralized generation paradigm fails to capture and utilize thermal energy for combined heat and power, abandoning a large portion of the available value from the primary energy source. A solar thermal electric system utilizing Stirling engines for energy conversion solves both of these shortcomings and has the potential to be a key technology for renewable energy generation. The ability to store thermal energy cheaply and easily allows the reliable generation of output power even during absences of solar input, and operating as distributed generation allows the output thermal stream to be captured for local heating applications. Such a system also can achieve relatively high conversion efficiencies, is fabricated using common and benign materials, and can utilize alternate sources of primary energy in an extended absence of solar input. This dissertation discusses the design, fabrication, and testing of a Stirling engine as the key component in a solar thermal electric system. In particular, the design addresses the low temperature differential that is attainable with distributed solar with low concentration ratios and is designed for low cost to be competitive in the energy space. The dissertation covers design, fabrication, and testing of a 2.5 kW Stirling Engine with a predicted thermal-to-mechanical efficiency of 20%, representing 60% of Carnot efficiency, operating between 180°C and 30°C. The design process and choices of the core components of the engine are discussed in detail, including heat exchangers, regenerator, pistons, and motor/alternator, and the process for modeling, simulation, and optimization in designing the engine. Finally, the dissertation covers the assembly and experimental testing that validates the design in terms of heat exchanger performance, losses, kinematics, and cycle work.
Existing literature focuses on the alleged merits of the Stirling engine. These are indeed latent but, decades on, remain to be fully realised. This is despite the fact that Stirling and other closed-cycle prime-movers offer a contribution to an ultra-low carbon economy. By contrast with solar panels, the initial manufacture of Stirling engines makes no demands on scarce or exotic raw materials. Further, calculating embodied carbon per kWh favours the Stirling engine by a wide margin. However, the reader expecting to find the Stirling engine promoted as a panacea for energy problems may be surprised to find the reverse. Stirling and Thermal-Lag Engines reflects upon the fact that there is more to be gained by approaching its subject as a problem than as a solution. The Achilles heel of the Stirling engine is a low numerical value of specific work, defined as work per cycle per swept volume per unit of charge pressure and conventionally denoted Beale number NB. Measured values remain unimproved since 1818, quantified here for the first time at 2% of the NB of the modern internal combustion engine! The low figure is traced to incomplete utilisation of the working gas. Only a small percentage of the charge gas - if any - is processed through a complete cycle, i.e., between temperature extremes. The book offers ready-made tools including a simplified algorithm for particle trajectory map construction; an author-patented mechanism delivering optimised working-gas distribution; flow and heat transfer data re-acquired in context and an illustrated re-derivation of the academically respected Method of Characteristics which now copes with shock formation and flow-area discontinuities. All formulations are presented in sufficient detail to allow the reader to 'pick up and run' with them using the data offered in the book. The various strands are drawn together in a comprehensively engineered design of an internally focusing solar Stirling engine, presented in a form allowing a reader with access to basic machining facilities to construct one. The sun does not always shine. But neither will the oil always flow. This new title offers an entrée to technology appropriate to the 21st century.
Solar Power Generation is a concise, up-to-date, and readable guide providing an introduction to the leading renewable power generation technology. It includes detailed descriptions of solar photovoltaic and solar thermal generation systems, and demystifies the relevant solar energy technology functions in practice while also exploring economic and environmental risk factors. Engineers, managers, policymakers, and those involved in planning and delivering energy resources will find this reference a valuable guide to help establish a reliable power supply to address social and economic objectives. Focuses on the evolution and developments in solar energy generation Evaluates the economic and environmental viability of the systems with concise diagrams and accessible explanations Demystifies the relevant solar energy technology functions in practice Explores economic and environmental risk factors
Two centuries after the original invention, the Stirling engine is now a commercial reality as the core component of domestic CHP (combined heat and power)--a technology offering substantial savings in raw energy utilization relative to centralized power generation. Meeting the challenge involves addressing a range of issues: a long-standing mismatch between inherently favourable internal efficiency and wasteful external heating provision; a dearth of heat transfer and flow data appropriate to the task of first-principles design; the limited rpm capability when operating with air (and nitrogen) as working fluid. The account includes previously unpublished insights into the personality and potential of two related regenerative prime movers--the pressure-wave and thermal-lag engines. --
In the introductory and concluding chapters this book strive to satisfy the needs of the interested lay reader by addressing the potential, advantages, and costs of solar power plants. For the interested student, scientist, or technically oriented lay person the physical principles of insolation, its variability, concentration, and most efficient use are developed in some detail. Finally, experimental and theoretical developments in the recently created field of solar driven chemistry (via thermal, quantum, or electrical excitation) are described. The contributions in this book are written by leading solar scientists and engineering experts whose extensive background and experience in solar energy lend authenticity and completeness to the book. Design aspects of, and results from large experimental and demonstration plants are described by individuals who were directly involved in the design and testing of many of these plants. Consideration of the viability and future economics of large-scale solar power generation provides an outlook on the energy contributions which can be expected from an optional future supply of abundant and renewable energy, having little impact on the environment. This provides the rationale for the continued commitment to the development of solar power technologies by researchers, engineers, and industry. The eventual depletion of, or future political attacks on our energy supply will have less serious impact once this renewable option is in place.