Stirlingengineforum.com

John

Have a search for Andy Ross Stirling engines, there's a free download of his book available, it's a good read.

The ICE, with all its faults, is still an amazing device, until fuel supplies become intermittant!

GeoffV

Andy Ross's book is "Making Stirling Engines". There is also a free down load of a book on hot air engines from NASA, but it's 300 pages +. Ian S C

Thanks guys, will have a read and come back surely with more questions. Thinking now that a large diameter stirling that sits on top of the 55 gallon drum lid that is part of the furnace might be a better way to go. The lid gets hot enough to fry an egg almost instantly and has lots of surface area so there is potential there, just need to get the cold side away from the furnace...

Read Andy Ross book today and can see that with the precision involved in extracting power from these designs I am as you probably barin up the wrong tree. Thinking now of either an LTD design, with a ~2 ft diameter and probably a 4-500 degree f differential or a flame eater v8 sucking the 1000-2000 degree rocket heat right from the stack. Need to do more research but initial ideas. Hard to tell what I could make out of an ltd with a respectable td... Flame eater I would have to do lots of friction work but the cylinders being liquid jacketed already seems like it would help. suggestions of where else to research?

More books:"Principles and Applications of Stirling Engines" by C.D. West(ISBN: 0442292732), out of print, may be available second hand.
" Making Stirling Engines" Andy Ross, and "THE Stirling Engine Design Manual" by william Martini. the last two available for free down load at http://StirlingBuilder.com,
There are others out there, Ian S C