Stirlingengineforum.com

I completely agree, such a waste of heat with these kind of engines with an open flame. I had this idea for years, but couldn't figure out any relatively easy way to implement it untill yesterday: https://stirlingengineforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2682 Heating a metal object that's inside some...

12 hours of run time really emphasizes the sheer efficiency of the Stirling.

I'd cobble together a couple of fireboxes for them so the flame won't be exposed, and so more of the flame will actually be heating the engine.
Seriously, that's a pet peeve of mine.

BTW, the engines I ordered on eBay were sent "economy", as I recall, I was not about to pay the hundreds of dollars supposedly required for express. Stirling hobby shop had free shipping and the shipping label indicated the engines were sent express and at no extra charge. I would suggest...

The ice will always eventually melt because there is no 100% perfect insulator, and no machine is 100% efficient. There are always mechanical losses. As far as mechanical loses and no perfect insulation, my freezer does not have perfect insulation either, and likely has numerous mechanical loses, b...

The ice will always eventually melt because there is no 100% perfect insulator, and no machine is 100% efficient. There are always mechanical losses.

Unless you're burning fuel to introduce heat, the fact that no machine is 100% efficient means it wouldn't run. When you compress air to heat it, some of that heat is going to radiate into the environment so it's not going to put that energy into spinning the turbine.

One thing I really like about that one is that it has a proper firebox around the hot cylinder. Every display model I've seen just has it hanging over an open flame. That really drives me nuts as a good insulated firebox would not only heat it up working temperature faster, it would also cut down on...

Heck, you could line a parabolic dish with tinfoil and it would still work. Now, since it's focusing on the end of the cylinder rather than a tiny point, you can get away with the mirror being a section of a sphere rather than a proper parabola. Now if you still want that parabola shape, there's an ...

I was wondering about the spelling of Mason vs. Manson (with an N), rather than the "free piston" part. I tried finding information on "Mason" engines, but didn't find much of anything, so I assume it is just a misspelling of Manson (?) Or is there such a thing as a Mason engine...

Part of the lack of development in Stirling engines is that back when they were first invented, metallurgy wasn't quite up to handling the temperatures needed to make them work really well. Likewise it's a bit tricky to make something flexible and airtight that can withstand high temperatures.

With a pulsating flow, having the channel narrow gradually like that actually chokes it a bit because the airflow gets kind of wedged in, so to speak. No time to sort itself out before the pressure is expended.The early Marconet pulse jets used this. Mufflers on 2-stroke engines exploit this to impr...

Like, what would be more effective at blowing out a candle? A short "laminar flow" burst of air through pursed lips directly focused on the flame or blowing smoke rings at it? We aren't blowing out a candle though. We're pushing a piston in an enclosed chamber. In that situation, pressure...

"Volatile" when referring to a substance, in this context simply means that it transitions from a liquid to a gas, (boils or evaporates, changes state) readily. An explosive expansion is what is wanted in an engine to drive the pistons, generally. The problem is that such explosive expans...

Tom Booth wrote: ↑Sat Jun 27, 2020 5:18 pmHighly volatile sounds good to me for this application.

Why? Something being explosive doesn't have a lot to do with it's rate of expansion unless you intend for it to explode.