Heat exchangers in Stirling engines and many other reciprocating machines operating under conditions of both oscillating pressure and oscillating flow are discussed. Experiments were done on an apparatus consisting of a piston-cylinder space connected to an annular dead-end heat exchanger space. Instantaneous heat flux and center gas temperature were measured at six locations along the heat exchanger. The results were used to test the model with the complex Nusselt number correlated against oscillating-flow Peclet number. The experimental results showed that the complex Nusselt number was capable of predicting the heat flux, but that there was at least one other important independent variable besides oscillating-flow Peclet number. Dimensional analysis suggested that this was either the ratio of gas thermal properties to those of the wall or a measure of compressibility effects.
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