Maximized Thermal Efficiency and Power of a Solar Dish Stirling Heat Engine

Recently, solar energy has widely been used for generating power. In this context, dish Stirling engine with good efficiency and wide ranges of heat and power can be employed as the prime mover of the cogeneration systems. This paper aims to maximize the overall thermal efficiency of the solar dish Stirling heat engine (SDSHE) and improve its power output in comparison with recently published works. A non-linear programming problem is solved under generalized algebraic mathematical modeling system (GAMS) using CONOPT solver. It is demonstrated that GAMS is able to find better solutions than multi-objective evolutionary algorithms. Although a single objective optimization problem is solved, but power output of SDSHE and thermal efficiency of cycle are improved simultaneously.

Keywords:

Solar dish Stirling heat engine (SDSHE) , absorber , concentrator , regenerator , non-linear programming problem (NLP) , generalized algebraic mathematical modeling system (GAMS)