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Literature Review Of Stirling Engine

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Literature Review Stirling engines were invented in the early 1800’s and since then there have been major changes to the design to adjust to certain criteria. In the early stages of the engine the ability to create highly efficient engines became limited due to technology and materials available. All the sources sampled agree on what a Stirling engine was and what characteristics make them different. A Stirling engine is a heat engine that has the heating and cooling of the gas which then applies pressure on the piston heads thus moving both the gases and the pistons creating energy (American Stirling Company, n.d). Other articles on Stirling engines agree, saying “Stirling engines are machines that operate in a closed regenerative thermodynamic cycle. The use of Stirling engines is based off the Stirling engine cycle of power” (Asnaghi, Ladjevardi, Izadkhast, Kashani, 2012). Other respected articles agree with this basic definition of the engine saying that applying an external heat source to a closed cylinder where the cyclical expansion and compression of air inside the cylinder drives the pistons up and down (Helman, 2015) and because the engine is a closed system the expansion of gases cause the pistons to move (Saab, 2015). An introduction to a 2010 study points out that there are more concepts to the Stirling engine then just mechanics saying, “The Stirling engine is based on the materials, development, and design of the engine to determine how well it works”

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