Highlights From 6500 Hr of Stirling Engine Operation 650254

Since General Motors introduced the Stirling thermal engine to the American engineering community at the 1960 SAE Annual Meeting, it has accumulated 6500 hr operating experience with full-size, practical Stirling engines. Most of this experience has been in dynamometer operation which generated quantities of performance curves that define the operation of the engine under normal and abnormal conditions and which permitted critical evaluation and refinement of our computer analogs of the engine. Much knowledge has been acquired in development of controls and peripheral apparatus needed to make the Stirling engine a complete entity like the Ground Power Unit recently accepted and tested by the U. S. Army. Attention has also been given to Stirling engine systems of 5–5000 hp for applications ranging from below the sea to outer space.