Stirling Forum Home Page

We are students at the University of Houston working on a senior
design project for a rotary displacer type Stirling engine. We are
intending to design and fabricate an alpha dual piston Stirling
engine capable of producing 1.0 kw of power to power an average sized
home. We are using helium as the working fluid, since our
calculations are based on the assumption of use of an ideal gas.
What materials would be ideal for this application. we are
considering some sort of stainless steel, is this the best choice. If
so, what grade of stainless would be appropriate?

What temperature range is your heater head going to operate at?
What type of pressure is your engine to run at?
The higher the temperature and pressure the more expensive type of materials you are going to look at.
For prototype engines I guess stainless would do. You could look into AISI 316 or AISI 310. You could try to google the "Mil Handbook"
e.g. www.grantadesign.com/userarea/Mil/mil5.htm
Regenerators are "always" AISI316. Seals can be Rulon or use Vespel (quite expensive though)

If you really want to design and fabricate a 1 Kw Stirling engine then you will have to dig deep into the theory.

A more practical approach is to design a MALONE Liqud Engine which is a Stirling engine using water at supercritical states for both the hot and cold sides. It is best described in "The Evolution of HEAT ENGINES" by Ivo Kolin, 1972, l998.