Customer Reviews

The Regenerator and the Stirling Engine

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Stirling engine has been around for almost 200 years however no book has ever been published on the design of Stirling engines. All the various companies developing Stirling engines have been keeping their design methods secret. Why? Because the Stirling engine defies intuition - there are a vast number of relevant parameters to choose that affect the performance in complex, interrelated ways. Over the past 25 years Dr Organ has made it a mission to set that path right and this book represents the culmination of that effort. In the book he defines new dimensionless parameters in an attempt to reduce the number of variables, and has shown the vital importance of the regenerator to the machine. Furthermore he has lead the way to a design methodology which does not require extensive computer analysis. It is not easy to wade through the 623 pages crammed with diagrams and equations, however I strongly feel that this book is required reading for anyone interested in Stirling engine design. I believe that the introduction of this book represents a turning point in history of these fascinating machines.

Were I charged with the task of managing a program to design and build a well functioning Stirling engine, this book is the reference around which the entire endeavor would revolve. The endorsements of Israel Ureli and Theodor Finkelstein lend immeasurable credence to the techniques and tools described by Allan Organ. The chapters on Similarity and Scaling are supported by a convincing and in depth look at the first principles of Stirling engine design from burner to cooler. The math of the derivations can be intimidating but the math needed for the actual thermodynamic design work is algebraic arithmetic that even a Calculus challenged engineer such as I can understand. Discussions of this book and the design principles it contains are ongoing at sesusa@egroups.com. If you are serious about building a Stirling engine that works, you need to buy this book and join the discussion.

This book set itself an absolutely monumental task: to present a complete and up-to-date treatment of an immensely difficult, and mathematically intractible subject. After what must have taken years and years of work (I know how hard it is, having published around 50 scientific papers on Stirling engines, but never had the time needed to get a complete error-free book out!) so when I saw Organ's compendium, of 623 pages and uncounted illustrations and equations, I was absolutely amazed how close he came to achieving this aim. The previous reviewer cites a lot of errors without referencing them, therefore I do not know where to look for them. Similar to the first reviewer I also found it difficult to absorb and navigate through the detailed terminology, with prefixes, subscripts and font distinctions. I have not found any errors in those equations I analysed, and the first reviewer fails to cite these. Consequently I fail to see why this book should not receive the unstinted praise that it deserves for a job well done. I would be curious to see further reviewers enter the lists and add their opinions to these first two.

Allan Organ has written the most in-depth study of regenerators to date. The intense mathematical treatment is accompanied by graphs and tables that make understanding the inner workings of the regenerator fairly straight forward. Secondly, the book covers design by scaling in a very easily grasped manner that is interesting and useful to the engine designer as well as being interesting in it's own right. Thirdly the design process for a complete engine is worked through including stressing parts, sizing bearings and balancing . The book contains design drawings and dimensions from a selection of engines that is not available elsewhere. I have personally gotten a lot of inspiration from Allen's book and incorporated a few of his ideas into my own stirling engine design software.

I enjoyed reading this book. If you want to make a Stirling engine that works, and this is something that has not often happened in the past without a great deal of trial and error, then buy this book. It will give you the necessary analytical tools to understand and design an engine that operates at the design point. I lent my copy of the book to a friend who used the analysis methods in this and the earlier book to design and build a 25kW engine for combined heat and power. I doubt that I will ever manage to get it back it is just too useful.

I think that all reviewers should state their competence when writing so that readers can take this into account when weighing their comments.

I have a degree in engineering, but I read this book because I had done some teaching for Alan in the Engineering department and had watched the books being written and the research that led to them over many cups of coffee at martins coffee shop. I wanted to understand these engines that have always seemed so hard to design well.

In my view the book provides the only coherent and comprehensive treatment of the thermal regenerator in the context of the Stirling cycle machine. It contains the first fundamentals for understanding, analysis and design by extension of the Hausen-theory for flush ratio conditions of the Stirling gas circuit. Furthermore the developed method of scaling on the basis of similarity law provides a fundamentally insight and is also a helpful basic tool for the practical gas circuit design, without the computer, which I have used and successfully applied to real engine design. I can strongly recommend this accurate book to those, who are really interested in this field of engineering.

Actually I was hoping to get a practical guide to determine how to choose a regenerator for a practically workable Stirling engine.
I was a little bit disappointed to see that this book is full with an incredible amount of complicated formulas. As a practical man (and not a very skilled mathematician) this book was not very useful to me.

So my conclusion is: If you are not afraid of big formulas and like to REALLY know everything about regenerator theory, this might be your book.
If you want to make a Stirling engine for yourself and want to check which regenerator you need for that purpose: I hope you'll find a more suitable book.