Heat exchanger stack apparatus
AssigneeStirling Thermal Motors, Inc.
InventorsRoelf J. Meijer, Benjamin Ziph
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A heat exchanger stack apparatus for use on a remotely heated Stirling engine having a variable swashplate drive mechanism, which comprises rigidly combining a regenerator, a flexible heat exchanger, a short, rigid hot connecting duct and a cylinder. A heat exchanger stack apparatus for each cylinder of the engine is mounted on a drive mechanism housing with the regenerator adjacent to a cooler located within the drive mechanism housing. The cooler, regenerator and flexible heat exchanger are axially aligned providing a linear flowpath for the engine working fluid. Bellows and flexible tubes connected to the flexible heat exchanger provide axial and transverse flexibility to reduce thermal stresses within the heat exchanger stack apparatus.
Claims6
In a Stirling engine which includes a heat exchanger arranged in a stacked generally aligned relation with a cooler and a regenerator so that the regenerator is located at one end of the heat exchanger, with a connecting duct at the opposite end of the heat exchanger, the improvement comprising means forming part of said heat exchanger providing for flexibility of said heat exchanger so that the internal volume of said heat exchanger can contract and expand in response to heating and cooling thereof, and a plurality of tubes in said heat exchanger communicating at their ends with and extending between said regenerator and said duct so that engine working fluid flowing through said tubes can be heated in said heat exchanger.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.