Projeto e simulação de um motor stirling

Abstract

As a result of the increase in energy demand as well as the shortage of fossil fuel resources, the use of non-traditional energy sources became a necessity. Stirling engines are thermal machines that can produce power using as energy input the heat generated by any source and, in addition, they require little maintenance, thus becoming an excellent alternative for power generation in rural areas. However, the absence of large-scale production is responsible by the relatively high costs associated to its manufacturing, as compared to traditional internal combustion engines. This work focused on this aspect and established as objective the designing of a Stirling engine that should be built with parts already available on the market and, because of that, should have lower cost. In order to achieve this objective, a computational model was developed and a parametric study was conducted in order to identify those of the major engine parts that can be based on commercial components. Additionally, this parametric study also allowed the identification of variables that in a higher degree influence the power and energy efficiency. Accordingly, this report presents the development and results of this study.