Abstract
This paper describes in detail experimental results on flow resistance and heat transfer of regenerator wire meshes of a Stirling engine in oscillatory flow. The results show that for Re>300, the friction factor of wire mesh became lower than that in previous studies. It has been clarified that the friction factor in a decelerating period becomes higher than that in an accelerating period under the condition that both Valensi number and maximum Reynolds number exceed certain values. A new experimental method for estimating Nusselt number of wire mesh in oscillatory flow is proposed. This method employs a cylindrical probe having two thermocouples attached on opposite sides of the cylinder facing the direction of oscillatory flow. It has been clarified that Nusselt number of wire mesh becomes a function of Reynolds number and open area ratio. Also, experiments on spring mesh were carried out.
