Stirlingengineforum.com

I've been trying to figure this out for a bit, perhaps someone can clear it up for me

if you have a heat source at a certain temperature, and you run it through a stirling engine to produce work, does the heat in == the heat out, or is the heat converted to work, and so you need to dissapate less than you put in.

Ie, is it this:

Hout = Hin - Work

or this:
Hin = Hout

and work is obtained from the movement of the heat

It seems like it must have a cooling effect as heat is converted to work, but i can't find anything that settles it one way or the other.

cheers
-tmk

This is the energy balance: Hin - Hout = Work

Hin can only be from the heater (heat source). Hout is the heat removed from the cooler plus any other source of heat (thermal) loss from the engine, such as from the regenerator or the hot cylinder walls in the expansion space. It's desired to keep these latter sources of heat loss to a minimum in order to have maximum thermal efficiency for the engine