Last year I was an IB student in the MYP program. At the end of the year we had to do a research project on something that interests us. Doing some research on the internet, I came across something called a stirling engine."So, what the heck is a stirling engine?" You may ask. Well when I first heard of it I thought of a chrome plated V8 internal combustion engine. However, according to a quick look at Wikipedia, "A Stirling engine is a closed-cycle regenerative heat engine with a permanently gaseous working fluid". Stirling engines happen to be one of the more efficient engines invented and can even act as a heat pump if manually turned. With the world taking a new focus on "green" energy, the stirling engine is making a comeback, being used in generators on small scales in remote areas and in larger scales, contributing to power grids.The next few steps will get more into the history and applications of stirling engines.If history and long boring back stories aren't your thing skip over to the build at Step 4.
He patented the Stirling engine in 1816 after several previous attempts at creating an air engine. His patent focused on some parts that kept some residual energy within the system allowing it to require less energy and therefore less fuel. He had also created the engine to compete directly with steam engines which, at the time were relatively dangerous having a tendency to explode when improperly used. Although it had great design and much thought had been put into the engine, the engines Stirling and his brother built tended to be unreliable because of some of the material limitations and the steam engines started becoming more reliable and safer. Stirling stopped pursuing the idea without knowing how it would be used today.
How i built a 5 hp stirling engine.rar
Stirling engines are now starting to gain popularity for it's high fuel efficiency and being relatively quiet while running. They are used in some generators as they can be powered by any heat source like solar or gas/wood flame. There are larger scale solar farms in Arizona that produce power using stirling engines.
In the 90's, NASA was experimenting with putting a stirling engine into a truck. They could burn any fuel that they wanted including diesel and even jet fuel. They eventually scrapped the idea for research into its uses as a stationary generator.
The Swedish navy has built a line of stirling powered submarines, or air independent propulsion submarines. They are the newest diesel electric subs that can stay underwater for several times longer than other diesel electric vessels, something only nuclear subs could do.
There are a few basic parts to the kind of stirling engine we are going to build. There is the flywheel, power piston and displacer. The power piston is what captures the expansion and contraction of the working fluid. The displacer moves air inside the engine to heat it up or cool it off. The flywheel keeps momentum and turns the engine to the next stage while the power piston isn't pushing or on the pull stroke when it is weaker.
Stirling engines on small scales that hobbyists build them, tend to be fairly delicate in a balance between the the amount of power it produces, the weight and balance of the fly wheel and the friction throughout the entire system so there will undoubtedly be problems with your new engine, especially if this is the first one you built.
He and Dr. Ivo Kolin at the University of Zagreb back in the 80's had a friendly competition to see who could build a Stirling engine that ran on the smallest difference in temperature. This ended with an engine that Dr. Senft built that could run on as little as 1 degree C. See:
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