Abstract
Operating characteristics of a liquid-piston Stirling engine in the inverse cycle movement were investigated experimentally. As the result, the possibility of a liquid-piston Stirling heat pump was shown. It is a distinguishing feature that a liquid-piston Stirling engine has no mechanical part in itself. Many people have been thought that a liquid-piston Stirling engine can work as a heat pump when it operates in the inverse cycle. But, there are only a few researches for the characteristic of an inverse cycle movement of a liquid-piston Stirling engine. In this report, forced vibration was given by a piston which was placed on the surface of the liquid column at the open-end of the resonance tube. The vibrations of the liquid columns were observed. It was confirmed that the optimum resonance tube length exists and both amplitude and phase difference reach at the length. In addition, though it was slight, it was confirmed that the low temperature was obtained by the inverse cycle movement of the liquid-piston Stirling engine.
