Using gas engine's residual heat to power a Stirling engine.

[crazySpic]

It does not sound bad, does not It??.
Using the residual heat it would be possible to power a Stirling engine,
producing energy to be stored in the battery. Getting
less power from the gas engine, (less time alternator running), less gas used, higher efficiency.
How does it sound??

 

[brewnog]

Yeah, it works, but you can't get a great deal of useful energy out of it though through a Sterling cycle, and it's usually not worth it for the extra cost of installing the hardware. Heat recovery (for hot water or steam) works quite nicely though, as does turbine heat recovery.

 

[PaulS1950]

It does not sound bad, does not It??.
Using the residual heat it would be possible to power a Stirling engine,
producing energy to be stored in the battery. Getting
less power from the gas engine, (less time alternator running), less gas used, higher efficiency.
How does it sound??

You are forgetting that you have to build heat to run the sterling engine.
The engine is not very efficient
If you use a gas engine to run a sterling engine to run accessories then you are adding to the total losses of the system - not gaining anything.
The gas engine is actually doing MORE work to make the heat required by the sterling engine in order to do the work to run the accessories.

Its like putting an alternator on the wheels of an electric car to charge the battery to run the car. More losses and a power requirement that goes up due to the drag of the alternator.

 

[russ_watters]

Here's a study on the concept (using a steam cycle, not a sterling cycle): http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2008150/posts