Stirling Cycle Engines re-visits the design challenge, doing so in three stages. Firstly, unrealistic expectations are dispelled: chasing the Carnot efficiency is a guarantee of disappointment, since the Stirling engine has no such pretentions. Secondly, no matter how complex the gas processes, they embody a degree of intrinsic similarity from engine to engine. Suitably exploited, this means that a single computation serves for an infinite number of design conditions. Thirdly, guidelines resulting from the new approach are condensed to high-resolution design charts – nomograms.
Appropriately designed, the Stirling engine promises high thermal efficiency, quiet operation and the ability to operate from a wide range of heat sources. Stirling Cycle Engines offers tools for expediting feasibility studies and for easing the task of designing for a novel application.
Key features:
- Expectations are re-set to realistic goals.
- The formulation throughout highlights what the thermodynamic processes of different engines have in common rather than what distinguishes them.
- Design by scaling is extended, corroborated, reduced to the use of charts and fully Illustrated.
- Results of extensive computer modelling are condensed down to high-resolution Nomograms.
- Worked examples feature throughout.
Prime movers (and coolers) operating on the Stirling cycle are of increasing interest to industry, the military (stealth submarines) and space agencies. Stirling Cycle Engines fills a gap in the technical literature and is a comprehensive manual for researchers and practitioners. In particular, it will support effort world-wide to exploit potential for such applications as small-scale CHP (combined heat and power), solar energy conversion and utilization of low-grade heat.
Stirling Cycle Engines re-visits the design challenge, doing so in three stages. Firstly, unrealistic expectations are dispelled: chasing the Carnot efficiency is a guarantee of disappointment, since the Stirling engine has no such pretentions. Secondly, no matter how complex the gas processes, they embody a degree of intrinsic similarity from engine to engine. Suitably exploited, this means that a single computation serves for an infinite number of design conditions. Thirdly, guidelines resulting from the new approach are condensed to high-resolution design charts – nomograms.
Appropriately designed, the Stirling engine promises high thermal efficiency, quiet operation and the ability to operate from a wide range of heat sources. Stirling Cycle Engines offers tools for expediting feasibility studies and for easing the task of designing for a novel application.
Key features:
- Expectations are re-set to realistic goals.
- The formulation throughout highlights what the thermodynamic processes of different engines have in common rather than what distinguishes them.
- Design by scaling is extended, corroborated, reduced to the use of charts and fully Illustrated.
- Results of extensive computer modelling are condensed down to high-resolution Nomograms.
- Worked examples feature throughout.
Prime movers (and coolers) operating on the Stirling cycle are of increasing interest to industry, the military (stealth submarines) and space agencies. Stirling Cycle Engines fills a gap in the technical literature and is a comprehensive manual for researchers and practitioners. In particular, it will support effort world-wide to exploit potential for such applications as small-scale CHP (combined heat and power), solar energy conversion and utilization of low-grade heat.

Stirling Cycle Engines: Inner Workings and Design
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