Make a Stirling Engine
Make A Stirling Engine
Make your own demonstration Stirling Engine
educationA
Stirling Engine is an extremely efficient device at extracting energy from heat differences (i.e. one side hot and one side cold) and it can be run from any fuel or energy source from the sun, to a candle, or from burning wood to the heat from your hand. Best of all, it is surprisingly simple to make a
working model stirling engine from readily accessible free or cheaply available parts and without expensive tools. Below are a list of links to some of the better free stirling engine plans available online.
Stirling Engine Plans
SFA Stirling Engine Project
Easy to Build Stirling Engine
Build a Can Stirling Engine
Article Last Modified: 14:37, 17th Apr 2006Comment on this Article
If you have any comments on this article, please email them to
neil@reuk.co.uk.
I would like to correct you on one point.
You state that a Stirling engine is an extremely efficient device at extracting energy from heat differences.
This is very misleading to most non technically minded people. Stirling engines apart from huge extremely expensive ones
using compresssed helium as the operating gas, are in fact very inefficient, and most of the model ones are more like 1%
of the efficiency of a similar sized internal combustion engine... i.e. so inefficient that they have to be made very free
in their bearings etc, just so they can run at all.
Dave
August 5th 2009
Don't be misled by Dave. Efficiency is the amount of energy out, divided by the amount of energy input, to a system. The amount of energy useable is directly proportional to the temperature difference across the motor, top and bottom in this case. You have very little temperature difference in most of these motors shown on the internet. Also you are only using the temperature difference; internal combustion engines also use the chemical energy of the fuel that you don't have. The amount of energy that internal combustion engines waste is many many times what you have available.
Chris
September 7th 2009 |
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