Recovery of exhaust waste heat for an ICE using a Stirling engine combined cycle

In conventional internal combustion engines, about 40% of fuel energy is turned into useful power and the rest is driven by cooling and exhaust system out of the engine. Therefore, there is a ground to recover energy from this wasted energy by fixing an additional cycle inline with the exhaust gas outlet. In this research, a stirling cycle was used for this purpose. Initially, the internal combustion engine was simulated. The engine studied was an EF7-NA spark ignition internal combustion engine and the simulation results were validated by using experimental results. The results showed that the exhaust gas outlet temperature varies from 393 to 848 ° C, according to engine operating conditions. Therefore, by installing a Stirling engine heater inline with the exhaust gases from the EF7 engine, the wasted energy can be turned into useful work. To validate the results of one-dimensional Stirling engine simulation, the experimental results of the Stirling Solo V161 engine were used. After validating the Stirling engine model, the combined cycle was simulated, combining a Stirling engine at working pressure of 50, 60 and 70 bar and EF7 engine at engine speed of 2000 to 4500 rpm. The results showed that at an optimal pressure of 50 barfor the Stirling engine, the EF7 power gain was 12.2% and an average efficiency increase of 5.2%, regardless of the weight of the added stirling engine in the car which considering that, a low impact on the power of the combined cycle is expected.