Research Article Design of Heat Exchanger for Ericsson-Brayton Piston Engine

Copyright © 2014 Peter Durcansky et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Combined power generation or cogeneration is a highly effective technology that produces heat and electricity in one device more efficiently than separate production. Overall effectiveness is growing by use of combined technologies of energy extraction, taking heat from flue gases and coolants of machines. Another problem is the dependence of such devices on fossil fuels as fuel. For the combustion turbine ismostly used as fuel natural gas, kerosene and as fuel for heating power plants ismostly used coal. It is therefore necessary to seek for compensation today, which confirms the assumption in the future. At first glance, the obvious efforts are to restrict the use of largely oil and change the type of energy used in transport. Another significant change is the increase in renewable energy—energy that is produced from renewable sources. Among machines gaining energy by unconventional way belong mainly the steam engine, Stirling engine, and Ericsson engine. In thesemachines, the energy is obtained by external combustion and engine performs work in a medium that receives and transmits energy from combustion or flue gases indirectly. The paper deals with the principle of hot-air engines, and their use in combined heat and electricity production from biomass and with heat exchangers as primary energy transforming element. 1