Design and Manufacture of Stirling Engine Car for Teaching Material

抄録

In recent years, environmental problems such as global warming and depletion of fossil fuels are coming to the surface. One of these problems’ solutions is to use a renewable energy and waste heat of factories, and it becomes possible to reduce a consumption of fossil fuels. Therefore, this can lead to a reduction of the carbon dioxide emission which is a cause of the global warming. In this background, we have been focusing on a Stirling engine. It is an external combustion engine which can operate using various heat sources. Meanwhile, the Stirling engine is relatively safe, because it does not explode during operating like a gasoline engine. From these viewpoints, we think that the Stirling engine is useful for the engineering education on an environment subject at school.

In this paper, we introduce a model of α-type Stirling engine car. This model is designed and manufactured for the aim of enlightening of the Stirling engine and the application of a teaching material. In addition, we worked to program a performance simulation based on Ideal Schmidt Theory. This program makes it possible to easily calculate the theoretical outputs of the Stirling engine by inputting parameters, such as the stroke of piston, the volume of expansion space and compression space, the heating and cooling temperature. Therefore, this program is useful to assist students with a poor knowledge on the designing of the Stirling engine.

We clarified the effects of various parameters on engine outputs by using this program.