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A Systematic and Comprehensive Review on 2-D and 3-D Numerical Modelling of Stirling Engine

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Abstract

The present study summarises a comprehensive review of the simulation modelling of the Stirling engine. A Stirling engine, characterized as an external combustion engine, is versatile enough to operate on various fuels, including solar energy and waste heat. Among the different analysis approaches for the Stirling Engine, fourth-order analysis, which is Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis, stands out as the sole method that takes into account the actual geometry of the engine. It is capable of identifying intricate gas flow patterns, as well as non-uniform pressure and temperature distributions within the engine. This results in better understanding and optimisation of the design parameters of the engine. The primary goal of this study is to compile and summarize 2D and 3D CFD simulation investigations, categorizing them based on the software employed, including ANSYS Fluent, OpenFOAM, and COMSOL. The focus will be on delineating the study type, computational domain, and the eddy viscosity models utilized for the modeling of Stirling engines. Comparison of various models and their deviation from experimental results is also listed. It was found that considering the radiation model resulted in an improvement of accuracy by 11%. The impinging effect, noted by CFD analysis, is responsible for vortex formation that improved heat transfer, resulting in a discrepancy of over 80% between the prediction of power output by the second-order method and CFD. For accuracy, simulation in full domain 3D is preferred over partial domain 3D and 2D CFD studies. However, it will require more computational resources, accurate 3D model and boundary conditions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Delhi Technological University, Delhi, 110 042, India

    Vaibhav Singh & Anil Kumar

  2. Centre for Energy and Environment, Delhi Technological University, Delhi, 110 042, India

    Anil Kumar

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  1. Vaibhav Singh
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Contributions

AK: Conceptualization, and supervision, Writing—review & editing, and supervision. VS: Visualization methodology, Writing—original draft and investigation.

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Correspondence to Anil Kumar.

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Singh, V., Kumar, A. A Systematic and Comprehensive Review on 2-D and 3-D Numerical Modelling of Stirling Engine. Arch Computat Methods Eng (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11831-024-10080-z

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