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regenerator returns to its initial state at the completion of each
cycle, so it cannot possibly be a source or sink of energy or
entropy.
So we don't care whether it's inside or outside the boundary of
"the system".
The efficiency of an ideal Stirling engine is (Thot - Tcold) / Thot.
There is nothing intrinsic to the Stirling cycle that limits it to
any lower efficiency.
From an engineering point of view, in a wide range of practicalsituations, if you care about high efficiency, you can do better
with an almost-ideal Stirling-cycle engine than with an almost-
ideal Carnot-cycle engine. The Stirling engine is difficult to
build and difficult to analyze, but finesse and effort are rewarded.
In contrast, there's not much you can do to remedy the nonidealities
of a real-world engine that tries to follow a Carnot cycle.
Certain "modern PER-based" textbooks get this completely wrong. I
take responsibility for what *I* say; I am not responsible for what
other people say. Please do not shoot the messenger.
For details, see
https://www.av8n.com/physics/thermo/classical.html#sec-stirling
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