Stirlingengineforum.com

Thanks for the answers, but I don't have any cast iron available. I could make the piston out of steel, but I only have aluminium and brass in the diameter I need for the cylinder.

Hello, it's me again! I am now almost finished with designing my Alpha Stirling engine and after looking at the design for a bit, I noticed that even a little bit of expansion of the piston or the cylinder would completeyl disable the engine. The two parts are made of aluminium/brass on my design an...

The hot side on my design is quite far away from the hot side, so heat creep shouldn't really be a problem. So if heat really is the only reason, my question is answered.

Thank you for the answer. I have one more question: will the engine also run without the extension? I am limited in the time I can take to machine the thing, so I am trying to make it as simple as possible.

Hi,
I am drawing some plans for an alpha-type stirling engine I want to machine. In the process I noticed that many designs have some 'unused volume' on the hot side (usually in form of a glass piece that sticks out). Is this necessary/which function does it serve?