Solar Dish Stirling

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moreshkokane
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Jun 03, 2009 8:19 am
First Name: Moresh
Last Name: Kokane

Solar Dish Stirling

Post by moreshkokane »

Folks

We are conducting some research for a Dish Stirling design and are
trying to figure out the best approach to take.I would really
appreciate if you guys can chip in with answers to the below questions

1) What are all the major components/modules that go into a Solar Dish
Stirling ?
Collector
Support Truss mechanism
Stirling Engine
Orientation mechanism / Heliostat
Is there any thing else ?

2) Does the Heliostat have a seperate power source or works off the
same solar power ?

3) The cost of Stirling Systems 25 KW engine demo design is 250K USD.
The cost of Sandia implementation is 150K USD. They are hoping it
bring it down to 50K USD to 80K USD. What are the cost of each of the
above mentioned components. Which of the components has the highest
cost.

4) What is the total weight of the implementations. Infinia has a 3 KW
implementation. What is the weight of all these designs. What is the
weight of the collector ? What is the weight of the engine ? What is
the volume of the engine ? What is the cross section area of the
engine ? This is the cross section area that blocks sunlight from
falling on the collector when suspended in mid air at the focus of the
dish engines.

5) The highest efficiency of these designs is around 30 %. What is the
maximum efficiency of a Stirling engine ? What parameters does the
efficiency of the engine depend upon ? What is the weight to output
ratio of the engine ? Does size of the engine make any difference,
does greater volume make a difference ? What about material used for
the engine ?

6) There are different types of Stirling engines available, Alpha,
Beta , Gamma , Freepiston. Which one is best suited for a Dish solar
implementation ? Why ? What are the costs of each of the different
types of the engines. Which variety has the potential for greatest
output and efficiency ? What are the weight and size parameters of
each of these varieties for a standard output, say 3KW or 25 KW.

Regards
Moresh Kokane
stan.hornbaker
Posts: 532
Joined: Thu Jun 20, 2002 6:01 pm
First Name: William S.
Last Name: Hornbaker

Solar Dish Stirling

Post by stan.hornbaker »

"We are conducting some research for a Dish Stirling design"

You are doing the research. We don't and wont do your job for you but will give some sources to help you proceed. Since I don't have all the information you are looking for at my finger tips and neither the time not inclination to hunt it for you the following web sites are the next best thing.

Dr. Izz: A current college level course in thermodynamice and Stirling engines. Many internal links.

A.J.Organs:

Vigorous use of the Yahoo search engine
moreshkokane
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Jun 03, 2009 8:19 am
First Name: Moresh
Last Name: Kokane

Response to Solar Dish Stirling

Post by moreshkokane »

Thanks, I appreciate your input and pointers will help as well. Also I
need to clarify that I will be willing to pay for the information as
well.

The most basic question I am trying to figure out the answer for is why
is Dish Stirling so expensive.
stan.hornbaker
Posts: 532
Joined: Thu Jun 20, 2002 6:01 pm
First Name: William S.
Last Name: Hornbaker

Response to Solar Dish Stirling

Post by stan.hornbaker »

My best guess is that the cost of the Stirling engine is 1/2 of the total cost. The balance is in the supporting structure(s), mirrors, controls, etc.

This is a discussion forum sponsored by The American Stirling Company for discussion of any and all aspects of Stirling engines. My function is Administrator of the forums and as such information is supplied to assist and promote the forums. That and other activities is more than I can keep up with.
bptdude___2569
Posts: 177
Joined: Sat Jan 13, 2007 3:31 am
First Name: Joe
Last Name: McLean

Response to Solar Dish Stirling

Post by bptdude___2569 »


Why is the Dish Stirling so expensive?

The well known answer will be that extreme precision manufacturing is done at great expense, to be able to extract usefull power.

Somebody who understood exactly why, and had a nice chat with industrial resources in Japan that have thousands of cutting edge production robots just sitting there idle, and the price may come way down.
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