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Most of the prototypes I see on youtube use quite shocking amounts of gas to get rpms. This because at higher rpms, lots of heat is needed to pump energy into the displacer cyclinder fast enough. As well as wasting expensive propane, it makes a racket. I'm going to try to make something which runs o...

Thermal Conductivity of stainless 8.1 (Btu/(hr-ft-F))
Thermal Conductivity of copper 231 (Btu/(hr-ft-F))

So if rigidity is the issue, an exoskeleton of titanium wire supporting a corrugated copper cup has to be worth a try, no?

That's interesting Ian. It indicates that the longer dwell of the working gas at the cold end when the engine slows under load has a bigger effect than the longer dwell of the working gas at the hot end. I wonder if it would be a different story in a pressurised engine, where there is greater molecu...

Aviator, I didn't say slowing the engine down would increase the power, I said "As the engine slows, the working gas spends longer in contact with the hot end of the system and reaches a higher temperature", though as you correctly say, there will always be a gradient through the system. T...

Ian, would I be right in thinking that there will always be positive pressure in the hot cyclinder, even in an unpressurised stirling engine? I ask because I'm wondering about a much cheaper solution for a small (5W) machine involving pre-corrugated copper sheet. i.e. If an external support lattice ...

I'm a newbie here, and so very late to this debate. I'd just like to add a couple of points which I hope will help. If I understand correctly, Tom's hypothesis is that when the engine is under load, more energy is dissipated in converting thermal energy to kinetic energy, and so less energy is neede...

I found Andy Ross' book 'Making Stirling Engines' Available here: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_t-6mP ... edit?pli=1:

Hi guys, I'm a newbie here, so forgive me if it's been covered. Has anyone had the hot cap off a sunpower free piston unit to see what it's like inside? One aspect of heat transfer is material thickness. Won't there be a trade-off at some point between finning and mass? Clearly the better the therma...

Hi all,
I've built a couple of pop can stirling engines and want to try something more ambitious that has a practical application.
I'm an engineer by trade and like motorcycle camping in my summer free time.