• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
• /
• v.23 no.4
• /
• pp.404-411
• /
• 2012

This research numerically analyses the effects of the damping device on the operation characteristics of a free piston linear engine. In this paper, the free piston linear engine uses spring as a damping device. The investigated parameter is spring hardness which is varied at 0.5, 1, 2.9, and 14.7 N/mm. The effects of spring hardness on the dynamic characteristic, thermodynamic characteristic and electric power of the engine are investigated. Beside, the equivalent ratio is also changed to provide more information for this study. The simulation results show that, by increasing spring hardness from 0.5 to 14.7 N/mm, all of parameters related to dynamic characteristic such as piston velocity, acceleration, displacement, and frequency increase accordingly. Beside, the peak pressure in the cylinder and electric power are also increased when increasing spring hardness. The tendency is also observed at varied equivalent ratios.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
• /
• v.23 no.2
• /
• pp.162-172
• /
• 2012

This paper presents a research about free piston linear engine (FPLE) fueled with hydrogen, in which, the numerical models are built to simulate the operation during the full stroke of the engine. Dynamic model, linear alternator model and thermodynamic model are used as the numerical models to predict piston velocity, in-cylinder pressure and electric power of FPLE. The spark timing and air gap length are changed to provide information for the prediction. Beside, the heat transfer problem is also investigated in the paper. The results of research are divided by two parts, including motoring mode and firing mode. The result of motoring mode showed that there is validation between simulation and experiment for volume and pressure in cylinder. For firing mode, by increasing spark timing, the velocity of piston, peak pressure and electric power also increase respectively. Beside, when increasing air gap length, the electric power increases accordingly while the motion of piston is not symmetric. The effect of heat transfer also observed clearly by reducing of the peak pressure, velocity of piston and electric power.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
• /
• v.17 no.2
• /
• pp.227-233
• /
• 2006

A free-piston hydrogen fueled engine is considered as one of the next power systems which is able to obtain high efficiency and low emission, simultaneously. In this study, in order to ensure the possibility as the next generation power system, the combustion characteristics and the performance of the free-piston hydrogen fueled engine are analyzed by using the linear RICEM for the change of injection pressure and equivalence ratio. As the results, in-cylinder maximum pressure is shown at injection pressure $P_{inj}$=6bar. Backfire phenomenon is not observed under experimental condition and knock occurs over ${\Phi}=0.8$. The thermal efficiency is the highest at injection pressure, $P_{inj}$=6bar and equivalence ratio, ${\Phi}=0.7$, respectively.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
• /
• v.25 no.6
• /
• pp.648-655
• /
• 2014

This paper describes the continuing effort to develope a single acting free-piston Stirling engine/alternator combination for use of the household cogeneration. Free piston Stirling engines(FPSE) use variations of working gas pressure to drive mechanically unconstrained reciprocating elements. Stirling cycle free-piston engines are driven by the Stirling thermodynamic cycle which is characterized by an externally heated device containing working gas that is continuously re-used in a regenerative, reversible cycle. The ideal cycle is described by two isothermal process connected by two constant volume processes. Heat removed during the constant volume cooling process is internally transferred to the constant volume heating process by mutual use of a thermal storage medium called the regenerator. Since the ideal cycle is reversible, the ideal efficiency is that of Carnot. Free-piston Stirling engine is have no crank and rotating parts to generate lateral forces and require lubrication. The FPSE is typically comprised of two oscillating pistons contained in a common cylinder. The temperature difference across the displacer maintains the oscillations, and the FPSE operate at natural frequency of the mass-spring system. The power is generated from a linear alternator. The purpose of this paper is to describe the design process of the single acting free-piston Stirling engine/alternator. Electrical output of the single acting free-piston Stirling engine/alternator is about 0.95 kW.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
• /
• v.26 no.3
• /
• pp.294-299
• /
• 2015

Free piston linear engine (FPLE) is a promising concept being explored in the mid-20th century. On the other hand, Arficial neural networks (ANNs) are non-linear computer algorithms and can model the behavior of complicated non-linear processes. Some researchers already studied this method to predict internal combustion engine characteristics. However, no investigation to predict the performance of a FPLE using ANN approach appears to have been published in the literature to date. In this study, the ability of an artificial neural network model, using a back propagation learning algorithm has been used to predict the in-cylinder pressure, frequency, maximum stroke length of a free piston linear engine. It is advised that, well-trained neural network models can provide fast and consistent results, making it an easy-to-use tool in preliminary studies for such thermal engineering problems.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
• /
• v.19 no.2
• /
• pp.139-144
• /
• 2008

The focus of this research is that the scavenging aspect of in-cylinder is visualized by the PIV method and its characteristic is analyzed so that the scavenging performance of the free piston hydrogen fueled engine can improve with loop scavenging. As the results, the piston of convex type shows the best scavenging performance among the presented pistons. In case of the abnormal expansion, the scavenging of area between cylinder head and cylinder wall doesn't operate well.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
• /
• v.19 no.3
• /
• pp.182-188
• /
• 2008

In order to improve scavenging performance of free piston hydrogen fueled engine, this study estimate compatibility of uni-flow scavenging. The scavenging flow characteristics in the cylinder is investigated by flow visualization and PIV method. Consequently it has been found that the scavenging performance decreased with abnormal expansion of piston and delay of the exhaust valve opening timing. And the scavenging performance of exhaust valve located center in cylinder head is better than that of exhaust valve located side in cylinder head.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
• /
• v.23 no.7
• /
• pp.654-661
• /
• 2013

The dynamic characteristics of a free-piston stirling engine(FPSE) with regard to the working frequency is investigated from theoretical and experimental studies. The FPSE is modeled as a two degree-of-freedom linear vibration system. A theoretical expression on the working frequency is derived from the instability condition for self-excitation based on the linear vibration model. A ${\gamma}$-type free-piston stirling engine is fabricated for experimental studies, and its working frequency is measured on various heater temperatures. Comparisons between the theoretical and experimental results reveal that the working frequency of the test FPSE depends on both the temperature of the compression space and the temperature difference between the expansion and compression spaces.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
• /
• v.27 no.1
• /
• pp.114-120
• /
• 2016

This paper describes generating efficiency characteristics of the double acting Stirling engine/generator for domestic small-scale CHP (Combined Heat and Power) system. In small distributed generation applications, Stirling engine has competition from fuel cell, microturbine and etc. In order to be economical in the applications, a long life with minimum maintenance is generally required. Free piston Stirling engine (FPSE) has no crank and rotating parts to generate lateral forces and require lubrication. Double acting Stirling engine/generator has one displacer and two power piston which are supported by flexure springs. Two power pistons oscillate with symmetric displacement and are connected with moving magnet type linear generators for power generation from PV work. In experiments, 1 kW class double acting free piston Stirling engine/generator is fabricated and tested. Heat is supplied to hot end of engine by the combustion of natural gas and converted to electric power by linear generators which are assembled with power pistons. The electric parameters such as voltage, current and phase are measured with for variable flow rate of fuel gas. Especially, generating efficiency of FPSE is measured with three different measurement methods. Generating efficiency of the double acting Stirling engine/alternator is about 24%.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
• /
• v.18 no.7
• /
• pp.1751-1758
• /
• 1994

A new set of governing equations is derived for the dynamic analysis of the Free-Piston Stirling Engines(EPSE). Equations from the ideal adiabatic model for the thermodynamic analysis of the working fluid are incoporated with the equations of motion for the moving masses of the system, resulting in a set of nonlinear differential equations. The coupled set of equations are numerically integrated with proper intial conditions to obtain a steady state response of the engine. The proposed method is compared with the conventional method of analyzing EPSE based mainly on the ideal isothermal model. The results clearly shows the limitationsl of the conventional methods and the relative advantages of the method proposed in the present study.