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I decided this article was of interest from a engine technology prespective. I was publish in the Global Times on 22ns Dec and written by Liu Xuanzun Defense reporter at the Global Times covering weapons and military development.
In a latest highlight of China's efforts to domestically develop high-quality engines of different types, the country recently made a major breakthrough in making the world's most powerful Stirling engine, a type of heat engine with applications in power generation and submarine propulsion.
Developed by the No. 711 Research Institute under the China State Shipbuilding Corporation Limited (CSSC), the basic prototype of China's first large-bore Stirling engine successfully conducted the recent performance test. The prototype ran at a rated power of 320 kilowatts with a power conversion efficiency of 40 percent, making it the most powerful Stirling engine known around the globe, the CSSC said in a press release published in its WeChat account on Tuesday.
The success of the prototype is a milestone and a major breakthrough China has made in key technologies and craftsmanship in developing such kind of engines and laid down the foundations for its development of megawatt-class Stirling engines in the future, the CSSC said.
The Stirling engine is a closed-cycle reciprocating power machine that takes heat supply from external sources, the press release explained, noting that the engine can be combined with any kind of heat source, either conventional or nuclear energy, in many configurations.
A megawatt-class Stirling engine is tightly structured, has a simple system and can be started quickly and configured in modules. These will be significant advantages of the Stirling engine, the CSSC announced.
When used together with a sodium-cooled fast reactor, the Stirling engine can eliminate the risk of sodium-water reaction making it also a very safe choice.
The engine can spawn a series of variations to suit the need of power supply, ranging from 100 kilowatts to several megawatts, and is very suitable to be developed into a portable micro reactor power generator used in special environments such as polar regions, remote islands and Gobi Desert regions, according to the press release.
The Stirling engine is also known for its application on submarine propulsion, observers said.
Swedish Gotland-class submarines feature Stirling engine air-independent propulsion (AIP) systems, enabling them to avoid going to the surface to charge the batteries, and thus increasing the submerged endurance from days to weeks, according to an article published by Saab, the parent company of Kockums which built the submarines.
The Stirling engine is quiet and vibration free, so no vibrations spread out to the hull making the submarine silent in the water and therefore difficult to find, according to the article.
The CSSC press release did not mention the potential application of the Chinese Stirling engine on submarines.
China has experienced shortcomings developing engines of different types but the breakthrough in the domestically developed Stirling engine is only one example of the country's rapid engine progress in recent years, a Chinese military expert who requested anonymity told the Global Times on Wednesday.
At Airshow China 2021, China revealed the J-20 stealth fighter jet, equipped with domestically developed engines, and announced that two types of engines developed in the country are being tested for the Y-20 large transport aircraft.
In many aspects of engine development, Chinese companies still lag behind traditional industry leaders from foreign countries but that gap is narrowing thanks to the hard work of Chinese scientists and researchers. China's military, as well as its overall development, will not be hindered by engines in the long run, the expert said.
A Stirling engine is a heat engine that is operated by the cyclic compression and expansion of air or other gas at different temperatures, resulting in a net conversion of heat energy to mechanical work. Wikipedia
The thermal efficiency of Stirling engines is 40% while the efficiency of similar Otto and Diesel engines are 25 and 35%, respectively. The Stirling engine cycle is a closed regenerative thermodynamic cycle, with cyclic expansion and compression of the working fluid at various temperatures [7–11].
Investigation of the effect of design parameters on power output and ...
https://academic.oup.com › ijlct › article
Search for: stirling engine efficiency
The Stirling Engine is significantly more powerful than a basic Redstone Engine, but uses fuel such as coal. It will eventually explode if it is producing more power than is being extracted from it.
https://feed-the-beast.fandom.com › wiki › Stirling_Engine
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The maximum torque and power are 3.99 Nm and 183 W at 4 bars charge pressure and 533 K hot-end temperature. ... Stirling engine is an environmental friendly heat engine which could reduce CO2 emission through combustion process.
https://www.researchgate.net › publication › 245189988_...
Search for: stirling engine torque
The main advantages of Stirling engines are the ability to use various heat sources and combustion chambers meeting environmental requirements, a low level of noise and vibration; favorable characteristics for both vehicles and stationary electric generators, and good consistency with a linear electric machine.21/02/2018
https://link.springer.com › article
Search for: advantages of stirling engines
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