Thermodynamics Me-130 Course Project Report

Fig 1.4- Gamma Stirling engine [13]

In this thermodynamics ME-130 course project, our project objectives were as follows: Construct a Stirling Engine Incorporate the Stirling engine into a toy car model Carry out thermodynamic analysis on the engine as well as the car model

For the first objective it was important to choose a specific Stirling engine. Thus, after researching on all 3 types of Stirling engines and studying the feasibility of these engines to be incorporated into a car model, it was finally decided to choose the Gamma type Stirling engine due to its manufacturing simplicity [5] compared to other Stirling engines, Furthermore, these engines can run on lower heat sources when compared to the other Stirling engines.

Simulation

In the manufacturing stage, the design with the real dimensions was meant to be followed to manufacture a Gamma Type Stirling Engine incorporated into a car model.

However, due to technical difficulties and lack of time, we could not produce a working model as we had hoped. After all our efforts the final product that we could achieve so far is shown below: Fig 2.3 Final Product

Problems that prevented our device from running were: The point on the flywheel/spinner where the connecting rod would have to be joined could not handle the force provided by the piston despite trying different possible adherents. Even though frictional losses were reduced, there was still some major friction due to the external support which was used with the main support to overcome horizontality problems of the displacer rod. Even though, after lots of effort in pointing out the exact point for the connecting rod to fix on the flywheel/spinner, there was still singularity occurring at one or the other point, most probably due to the thickness of the connecting point on the flywheel. Thus complete rotation was not becoming