Stirling Engines
Last updated on
Wednesday, September 20, 2023 05:41:29 AM
Mountain
US Time Zone
Stirling Engine, Double-acting Steam Engine
Stirling Engines
A Stirling "coffee-cup" engine.
Stirling Engines are
facinating
devices that I personally find far more interesting
than steam
as they are complex, self-contained devices using
more exotic materials, requiring
much tighter machining
tolerances, & are thus harder to design &
fabricate. Read the
Kilopower article. As an application example, I have used a
mid-wave infrared (MWIR) (3000nm to 5000nm)
imaging system that
incorporated a Stirling Engine
to cool its sensor for lowered
thermal noise.
Click to see
video.
Pre-heated base.
A pressure/volume
graph of the idealized Stirling cycle.
Alpha- & Beta-Type Stirling Engines.
Beta-type rhombic Stirling Engine.
Double-acting Steam Engines
A
double-acting
bronze
steam engine
machined from a
rough
castings kit.
The base is red
oak with
routered
radiused edges & rubber
feet.
Click on photo for
a
video
showing the engine
running on compressed air.
Both a mill & a lathe
are needed for this project. A problem with kits is that the
amount of
material per part is minimized making it harder to grip when machining,
possibly
necessitating designing & machining a
fixture, which
in general is not a
beginner's project. Also, not being able to hold close
machining tolerances
results in an undesirable "wobbly looking" vibrating flywheel
rotation,
(DA).
Stirling Engine,
Double-acting Steam Engine