Heat engine regenerators: Research status and needs

Technical Report · Sat Aug 01 04:00:00 EDT 1987

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/6179028· OSTI ID:6179028

Hutchinson, R A

The rapidly oscillating, variable density flows of regenerative heat engines provide a class of poorly understood unsteady flow and heat transfer problems. These problems are not currently amenable to direct experimental resolution. Experiences in engine development and test programs and efforts to develop analysis tools point to the regenerator as a key area of insufficient understanding. Focusing on flow and heat transfer in regenerators, this report discusses similarity parameters for the flows and reviews the experimental data currently available for Stirling analysis. Then a number of experimental results are presented from recent fundamental fluid mechanical and thermal investigations that shed additional light on the functioning of heat engine regenerators. Suggestions are made for approaches for further measurement and analysis efforts.

• Research Organization: Pacific Northwest Lab., Richland, WA (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: AC06-76RL01830
• OSTI ID: 6179028
• Report Number(s): PNL-6278; ON: DE87013581
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
425003* -- Engineering-- Power Cycles-- Stirling-- (1980-)
DATA ANALYSIS
DESIGN
ENERGY TRANSFER
ENGINES
FLUID MECHANICS
FRICTION
HEAT ENGINES
HEAT TRANSFER
MECHANICS
PERFORMANCE
REGENERATORS
SCALING LAWS
STIRLING CYCLE
STIRLING ENGINES
THERMODYNAMIC CYCLES