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The History of Stirling Refrigeration
To understand the Stirling engine is to understand history. And to understand Global Cooling is to know David Berchowitz and his team.
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The first Stirling engine, 1830. |
As the Industrial Revolution emerged throughout Europe, a British patent was awarded to Robert Stirling in 1816.
“All my improvements for diminishing the consumption of fuel, consist of the differing forms or modification of a new method, contrivance, or mechanical arrangements for heating and cooling liquids, airs or gases, and other bodies, by the use of which contrivance heat is abstracted from one portion of such liquids, airs or gases, and other bodies, and communicated with another portion with very little loss, so that in all cases where a constant succession of heated liquids or other bodies is required, the quantity of fuel necessary to maintain or supply it is by this contrivance greatly diminished”.
In 1834, noted British astronomer John Herschel applied the Stirling cycle for cooling. This was the first known case of using the Stirling machine for refrigeration purposes.
Later, Scottish born John Gorrie immigrated to US in 1849; he lived in South Carolina and Florida. History suggests that Gorrie may have been the first to apply the Stirling machine for making ice. From descriptions
published in 1876 by Alexander Carnegie Kirk, it seems that by then Stirling cycle cooling was well known in technical circles.
Over time, advancements in Stirling cycle machines become less frequent and almost disappeared by 1900 until they were rediscovered in the 1940s by researchers at Philips in The Netherlands. Philips used pressurization to significantly improve power density.
Beginning in 1946, under the direction of J. W. L. Köhler Philips applied the Stirling cycle for deep temperature use in the generation of liquefied gases (US Patent 2,907,175, March 14, 1955). These machines are still in production by Stirling Cryogenics and Refrigeration BV.
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The world’s first practical
free-piston Stirling engine. |
William Beale while a professor at Ohio University, Athens, OH, USA) invented the free-piston Stirling engine in 1965. This device required no linkage since the only two moving parts are driven by internal gas pressures, and both the piston and displacer “float” on helium bearings, thus eliminating the need for any lubrication whatsoever.
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The SPIKE free-piston Stirling engine. |
Sunpower, Inc., Athens, OH, introduced the industry’s first high-frequency free-piston Stirling engine, known as SPIKE, shown in 1983. The SPIKE engine demonstrated that acceptable power densities are possible in free-piston machines. At this time, however, there were no commercialization plans in place to apply the new technology.
In 1995, Global Cooling Inc. was established as a spin-off from Sunpower, Inc, with the intention of commercializing a line of coolers using the free-piston Stirling engine. The company’s first production unit, M100, was sold as an OEM product to other manufacturers to use in a range of devices used in aerospace, electronics, energy and other industries.
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