Sintered metal fiber structures for fast heat storage and regeneration

It was shown experimentally that anisotropic sintered fiber structures provide a verv interesting combination of specific surface area, pressure drop and heat conductivity for certain applications where fast heat transfer from a flowing gas to a solid structure (and vice versa} is required. Easy adjustement of the porosity and the fiber diameter allows to quickly after the performance of the open-porous fiber structures and thus cover a wide range of experimental conditions. Excellent performance was obtained both in the application as a regenerator in a Stirling engine, as well as for secondary explosion protection in gas sensors. Currently ten Ericsson engines are being built by Enerlyt Technik Gmbh and field testing will commence in summer 2009.