Request Advice - Gamma Stirling

[Hawke]

One cooling system I heard of was designed to solve two problems. The gas cylinder was getting too cold, and the water was getting too hot. So the gas cylinder was put in the water container, it was a bit of a balancing act to stabilise the temperature, too hot and the gas pressure goes up, the engine gets hotter etc etc. Ian S C

Oh crap! more "ratio" type issues Hahaha
Good info Ian.

[m.read]

hello I am new to this forum.

I have built several gamma type and free piston stirling engines in past and have always used 0000# (super fine) steel wool wrapped around the displacer to act as the regenerator, as I've assumed the more surface area the better. However I was wondering if anyone had any experience using more coarse (#000, #00, #0) steel wool as the regenerator and compared it to an engine with fine steel wool.

I've always assumed that the more surface are the better for the regenerator, however I was wondering if the super fine steel wool may absorb/give off its maximum amount of energy middway through an up/down stroke because the steel wool is so fine (my free piston engines run at about 10-15Hz). Therefore a thicker steel wool may be better as it will be continually absorbing/giving off heat during its entire up/down stroke. Though, then again a thicker steel wool would present less surface area so may not absorb as may heat as quickly.

Any advice on steel wool thickness/type would be much appreciated!

[Hawke]

Not enough personal experiments from me but I have a note where a builder that does well with his model stirlings stated he used a "loosely filled displacer". How loose is loose I wonder, LOL. One needs pictures at the least so Im not much help here.
You may look at the thread: http://stirlingengineforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1651
Im got some SS Im going to use next time for the durability in the heat mainly.