ABSTRACT
Radioisotope-powered Stirling engine/alternators are being developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for long-term (up to 14 years) planetary ¨y-by and space science missions. DOE has been supporting development of Stirling engines for solar dish-Stirling systems for terrestrial applications for many years. The regenerator is one of three heat exchangers (in addition to the heat acceptor and heat rejector) in Stirling engines and coolers. Excellent regenerator performance is crucial to good engine performance (and even more important for cooler performance). First DOE, and then NASA, provided funding for regenerator research to Žrst learn more about the basic principles of good regenerator performance, and then to try to develop a new regenerator with superior performance to older designs. The work began with investigations based on testing and computational ¨uid dynamics (CFD) simulations of current-technology regenerators (i.e., wire-screen and random-Žber regenerators).
