Stirlingengineforum.com

Hello,

I thought may be stirling engine works at south pole like it is at the ecuador. I thought plus 4 Celcius Water and Minus 60 Celcius Air could make work a stirling engine ? Am I right ?

Thanks,

Mustafa Umut Sarac
Istanbul

Mustafa, yes it would probably work, but not much power with only 64 * differential, but that could be increased, the living quarters will be (maybe) 15*, there is possibly some parts of the camp that are even warmer, kitchen, generator room, but even then the power will be too low to do any work.
The new Zealand base in the Antarctic is now mainly powered by wind turbines, it used to be diesel generators. The American base a few miles away did have a small nuclear reactor, but that's been removed. I'm not sure, but I think the pole station uses diesel generators. Ian S C

Hello Ian and all,

I am thinking to build a small dwelling around Cerro Torres Argentina Chile southernmost area and spend a winter there. My dwelling is a box size and I am thinking to heat it with wind power. But strong winds could break the wind turbine and I am thinking to build a stirling engine which will work at extreme cold air to 15 celcius dwelling heat. What would be the energy output of shoebox size stirling engine ? Had had a stirling engine been ever designed for that purpose ?

I am thinking 400 watts or more enough to keep survived for me when using electric textile.

Thanks,
Umut

The only thing I can say is that I don't know of one that is available off the shelf, but a 400W one would be bigger than a shoe box, maybe 4 shoe boxes would do it. I'm sure you could design a rugged wind turbine, make it so that it swings to a neutral position when the wind gets too strong. Ian S C

Hello Ian and all ,

What would be the best online stirling engine plan would do the job. 4 shoeboxes size is not bad but what would be the weight ? I am thinking to install that engine to a small boat there also. If I am not wrong , it would be needed high pressurized gases , but I am not sure about there. Could you please give me more details ?
Is there a way to built it with setting polymer in molds ?

Thank you,

Umut

Re wind turbines, vertical models are generally easier to build, sturdier and can have all the heavy generator parts firmly placed on the ground. Also, gearboxes and other mechanical contraptions to turn it in different directions are not needed at all. Probably worth it to look into. :)

I have made one or two "small" wind turbines using strips of plastic water pipe to make the blades, and I'v decided that the best way of mounting them is to have the blades trailing, behind the mast. I agree with Stedevil about the vertical turbine, and I think that will be my next experiment. Ian S C

more on the subject of cold air outside and dwelling ambient temperature: I think the main downfall of this idea is that you will be using energy to heat your camp, and your stirling wil literally pump that heat outside. However, I would like to challenge Ian (and all) that 60-something degrees celcius should be plenty to do useful work - in my mind, an LTD with enough volume will output enough power. I see it as a waterfall, maybe not very tall, but as wide as you like. Now the LTD unit might be gigantic or might be series of tiny ones - but i certainly wouldnt dismiss the idea.

Mustafa, find online Andy Ross Building Stirling Engine, he talks about building a boat motor.

tomostre, you will also find in the (free down load) book "Making Stirling Engines", that he powered a bicycle also, but these were high temperature motors. I would agree, large, high tech LTD motor could give useful power out put, one was being developed at the local (Canterbury) university, there is a PDF on line some where. Ian S C

For a low temp difference engine, maybe a nitinol engine would be a better option?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKmYqUSDch8

Take ideas of free energy with a grain of salt. You do realise that any form of power generation requires just a little(depending on efficiency) more power into the device than you can get out, there is NO free power, the only use of Nitinol at the moment is very small parts. One main reason is the extremely difficult manufacturing methods required, and the high cost. Ian S C

Yes, no energy appears from nowere, so naturally a nitinol engine would partially suffer from the same issue as a stirling, excellently summarized by tomestre above "you will be using energy to heat your camp, and your stirling wil literally pump that heat outside."

But since the thread is drifting into a pure theory brainstorming, a nitinol engine could possibly also be run of heat differences inside the "survival box", putting the "cold-side" at the indoor room temp level. In any case I think most/everybody already got that to add real amounts of actual new energy to the "survival box system" wind power is the obvious practical solution. :)

On the wind power end, if what is needed is heat, not electricity, instead of a generator on the axel a hydraulic pump could be used, that pumps liquid through a hydraulic heat brake (or whatever it's called in English).

Think what you mean is a heat exchanger, properly done heat can be extracted regardless of the actual temperature, as long as the fluid doesn't freeze, even 40*C below zero is quite hot when you consider Kelvin. If it weren't for the difficulties I note above Nitinol might be useful. Ian S C

Well, wasn't really thinking about heat exchangers as such in regards to a nitinol engine. More of taking advantage of the hotspots that appear (eg residual heat from cooking, or even excess body heat) and extracting some of it as electricity when that heats moves to the ambient room temp.