Portable Cogeneration of Power and Waste Heat Actuated Cooling

As the Department of Defense develops more complex weapons, electronics and computer platforms, there is an increasing demand for both power and cooling. Existing portable means for providing power and cooling in a battlefield environment are too heavy, too noisy, and too fuel-inefficient. A portable cogeneration system is to be conceptualized and designed which meets DoD requirements: 5 kW electricity, and 10 kW cooling in a light weight, low noise package, fueled by JP-8. This effort will integrate an advanced generator with an advanced waste heat actuated cooler. The generator will likely be an external combustion device, e.g. a free piston Stirling engine, and the cooler will likely be an ammonia absorption refrigeration unit. Both of those technologies are sufficiently developed and exhibit the requisite capabilities and characteristics for this application. The Phase I design effort will be based upon levels of performance known to be achievable with the selected technologies. It will produce a design which is ready for fabrication and testing in Phase II.