The paper presents the results of simulation tests of hydraulic resistance and temperature distribution of the prototype Stirling alpha engine supplied with waste heat. The following elements were analyzed: heater, regenerator and cooler. The engine uses compressed air as a working gas. Analyses were carried out for three working pressure values and different engine speeds. The work was carried out in order to optimize the configuration of the engine due to the minimization of hydraulic resistance, while maintaining the required thermal capacity of the device. Preliminary tests carried out on the real object allowed to determine boundary and initial conditions for simulation purposes. The simulation assumes that there is no heat exchange between the regenerator and the environment. The solid model used in simulation tests includes the following elements: supply channel, heater, regenerator, cooler, discharge channel. Due to the symmetrical structure of the analyzed elements, simulation tests were carried out using 1/6 of the volume of the system.

The impact of the transversely-oriented sinusoidal wall corrugation on the hydraulic drag is investigated numerically for the flow through the channel of finite width and with flat sidewalls. The numerical method, based on the domain transformation and Chebyshev-Galerkin discretization, is used to investigate the flow resistance of the laminar, parallel and pressure-driven flow. The obtained results are compared to the reference case, i.e., to the flow through the channel with rectangular cross section of the same aspect ratio. Simple explanation of the gain in the volumetric flow rate observed in the flow through spanwise-periodic channel with long-wave transversely-oriented wall corrugation is provided. In the further analysis, pressure drop in the flows with larger Reynolds numbers are studied numerically by means of the finite-volume commercial package Fluent. Preliminary experimental results confirm the predicted tendency.