Regenerative rotary displacer Stirling engine

A few rotary displacer Stirling engines whose displacers have one gas pocket space at one side, and rotate in a main enclosed cylinder, which is heated from one side and cooled from the opposite side without any regenerator have been tried and studied for a considerable time by the authors. They then tried to improve this engine by equipping them with regenerators, because without regenerators, pressure oscillation and efficiency are insufficient. Here, several types of regenerative rotary displacer piston Stirling engines are proposed. One is the contra-rotating tandem two disc-type displacer engine, using axial heat conduction through side walls or by heat pipes and the other are single disc-types with circulating fluid regenerators or heat pipes. A contra-rotating type engine has been manufactured and experimented upon in order to assess the effect of the regenerators. Here, experimental results of an original rotary displacer Stirling engine without a regenerator and a contra-rotating tandem displacer engine with a side wall regenerator using axial heat conduction are reported, accompanied by many discussions.