Pages 45-48
Dead volumes are necessarily involved in the working space of a Stirling engine, such as in its heater, regenerator, or cooler, etc. These volumes can cause substantial decreases in the indicated work produced by the working gases, resulting in low output of the engine. On the other hand, the volume variations of the working space, yielded by any piston driving mechanisms being used nowadays for the Stirling engines, are always different from the ideal ones, the "ideal volume variations" (or iVV for short), protecting it from obtaining the maximum indicated work available thermodynamically. The indicated work decreased by the dead volumes and the non-ideal volume variations was investigated analytically and shown in the p-v diagram with emphases being putted on the effects of dead volumes.
