Study of temperature distribution over a stirling engine by using the schlieren technique

Abstract

The Schlieren technique has been used to visualize and measure some relevant physical properties in transparent media such as refractive index and some dependent variables on it such as density and temperature. This technique was implemented to visualize temperature gradients that appear from the heat applied into the hot section of a Stirling engine. Temperature gradients and temperature fields are described qualitatively and compared with temperature measurements using chromatic thermometric crayons. Furthermore, natural and turbulent heat convection was visualized from the temperature fields. The obtained results give important information about the heat transfer mechanism and its dissipation on a real engine.