Attachment of cylinders in the housing of free-piston stirling machines

Patent · Tue Dec 18 04:00:00 EST 2018

OSTI ID:1531377

Cale, E. Todd; Stanley, John

An improvement to a free-piston Stirling machine having a cylinder mounted within a housing. The cylinder has a flange for mounting the cylinder within the housing to a transition plate with a central opening for receiving the cylinder. An elastic rim bounds and surrounds the opening and extends in an axial direction from the plate to a crest of the rim. The crest of the rim is in contact against a first axially facing side of the cylinder flange. The interior side of the rim is outwardly spaced from the exterior side of the cylinder. A compliant clamp is attached to the transition plate and is positioned on the opposite, axially facing side of the cylinder flange. The compliant clamp has an elastic spring extending against the cylinder flange which applies a force urging the cylinder flange in an axial direction against the crest of the elastic rim.

• Research Organization: Sunpower, Inc., Athens, OH (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E)
• DOE Contract Number: AR0000604
• Assignee: SunPower, Inc. (Athens, OH)
• Patent Number(s): 10,156,204
• Application Number: 15/494,690
• OSTI ID: 1531377
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English