Emna Delali : " Thermofluidic study of a Stirling engine regenerator...'

Work : "Thermofluidic study of a Stirling engine regenerator both at the micro and millimeter scaleswithin the framework of the MISTIC (Micro Stirling Clusters)"

Abstract : The present work presents a thermofluidic study of a Stirling engine regenerator both at the micro and millimeter scales within the framework of the MISTIC (Micro Stirling Clusters) project financed by the ANR. The studied thermal regenerator allows to limit external energy supply to the system by recycling the heat rejected during the thermodynamic cycle. It is composed of a staggered-pillars matrix crossed by an oscillatory gas flow. The design of the miniature structures of the regenerator was conditioned by the chosen manufacturing process. The micro-regenerator design was conditioned by the chosen manufacturing process. The investigated porosities vary between ε = 0.8 and 0.9 for a shape factor equal to F.F = 0.3. The numerical simulations and experimental results for both prototype scales highlight the effects of the porosity, the piston stroke, the gas flow frequencies and the thermal gradient on the regenerator thermofluidic performances. Besides, correlations of the pressure loss coefficient were established and confronted with those available in the literature. We also calculated the pumping power required during a thermal cycle which depends on the porosity, the piston stroke as well as the gas flow frequency. The calculation of thermal efficiencies of the regenerator was led on both phases of heat store and heat refund. We established a decrease of the thermal efficiency according to the number of Reynolds, no concluding results were obtained for the effect of the porosity. A rough estimation of the figure of merit showed an increase of the pressure drop to thermal heat loss ratio according to an increasing Reynolds number of the gas flow.