Enhancing Cooling System of a Combustion Engine by Integrating with a Stirling Cycle

ABSTRACT

For this article, experimental work was conducted to integrate a Stirling cycle unit onto a vehicle radiator for enhancing the cooling system of a car engine. The Stirling cycle was integrated with the car engine to act as a pressure relief valve for the radiator. The performance of the radiator was improved by increasing the rate of heat transfer from the radiator and the Stirling cycle unit. Experimental results showed that using the Stirling cycle had improved the heat transfer from the radiator by removing heat from the water circulated in the engine, which caused a reduction of temperature up to 15°C in the coolant inlet temperature entering the combustion engine. This reduction in the coolant temperature was also dependent on the coolant mass flow rate. The coolant inlet temperature and pressure of the combustion engine are compared with those obtained with and without using the Stirling cycle.

Keywords::

• Combustion engine
• coolant
• heat transfer
• radiator
• Stirling cycle

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ehab Bani-Hani

Ehab Hussein Bani-Hani, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the Australian College of Kuwait (ACK). He has 15 year's experiences in combustion and environmental management, water and waste water treatment. Dr. Ehab received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at the University of Jordon and Master's degree in chemical engineering at the Jordan University of Science and Technology. He currently researches energy and renewable energy systems. He may be contacted at [email protected] or at [email protected].

Ahmad Sedaghat

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Ahmad Sedaghat, Ph.D., is an associate professor at Australian College of Kuwait (ACK). He has over 25 year's experiences in computational and experimental techniques in mechanical, aerospace, and maritime engineering. He has developed courses and supervised engineering students in thermo-fluid and aerospace subjects and obtained industrial funds in renewable energies of wind, solar, wave, and geothermal. Dr. Sedaghat obtained his Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering and M.Sc. in Applied Mathematics & Fluid Mechanics at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. He is a Fellow Member of Engineers Australia and Adjunct Professor of CQU. He may be contacted at [email protected].