Redesign of the conventional Stirling engine. Will it work?

Ok I think I have the basic cycle of a stirling engine down.
So I have been looking at YouTube and the
home made engines. Very creative.
But I question the efficiency that everyone is raving about.
Only because I live with
heat transfer every day and know that there is a fixed rate
of heat transfer through
the cold sides walls material.
I don't see that happening fast enough to deliver an efficient
power stroke.
Hence the slow, low torque outcome.

But I do know and work everyday with superheat and sub cooling.
I know that James Watt developed the
first efficient steam powered water pump by
accident when the
water jacket of the cylinder sleeve cracked
and injected water
directly into one side of the piston. It took the
piston and delivered
so much power it drove the piston out through
the bottom of the iron
casing and continue to drive it 3 floors down into the
mine shaft. That was amazing.

Now fast forward 1985. I was on a plane and was speaking with
an engineer for GE
who designed steam turbines. He was telling me about what drives,
well turns a steam turbine.
It wasn't the pressure of the steam passing through the vanes pushing
as much as it was the suctioning
effect due to the steam condensing into water and basically sucking the
steam over the turbines vanes.

In a way like the stirling engine.
But I don't see the cooling of the gas on the cold side as being
quick enough to produce
an effective stroke and hence delivering
that much power.

Unless the cooling side walls can be cooled rapidly
to a lower temp
creating that drawing
effect I don't see the sterling engine being more than what it's
been for 200 yrs. A folly in a laboratory.
So if the shell
around the cold side is flash sub cooled to draw the
piston up with power, it
could increase the power of the engine enough to offset the crude
parts we are going to use.
Now I am thinking of sub cooling the cold sides walls with refrigerant in
a flooded evaporator application.

The heat would be drawn off by a condenser buried into the hillside where
the mean temperature
of the earth is in the 50 degrees range. The vapor would be sucked into the
condenser (same principle) under the
earth and return it by gravity as a liquid flooding the evaporator in the shell
around the cold side.
My question to you?: Was the density of the R22 you used on your project
workable
as a medium in a normal
simple model of the stirling engine?
That's provided we make this sub cooling loop common to the stirling's inner sealed system.
If it is to dense then another refrigerant would
need to be found.

What was the reason it didn't work?
Or, We keep the R22 completely separate with two sealed systems. Well actually
R134a would be used since it's a component found in an automobile.

I noted that helium seems to be the best medium to use inside the sealed
sterling engine.
Did I miss anythings. Since I didn't know anything about a stirling
engine 2 days ago. Help me

I still question why a technology that's 200 yrs old is not in use in the field today, now.

Oh there is one component I left out lol well I can't tell you everything now can I.
If you understand the working theory of refrigeration you would wonder how will the back pressure be low enough? lol. If I need it to be. I didn't want to over engineer it from the get go.

Replies

  • Ramani Aswath
    Ramani Aswath
    Don Ross
    I still question why a technology that's 200 yrs old is not in use in the field today, now.
    Why are we using email instead of the regular mail? Why are we not using Neanderthal man's way of making fire striking a spark with two rocks? Because of better efficiency.

    Both refrigerants have Ozone depleting potential. R134 less than R22. Best avoided.
  • Don Ross
    Don Ross
    True. but in order in get it in the field, the application must move forward initially with any available resource.
    134a is cheap and available world wide and R22 is a superior refrigerant.
    The benefits of superiority in operation against the "claims" that this small amount has Ozone depleting
    impact may hold it's application back.
    Once again having the only place to study it's real world data is in the laboratory.
    Later models, once in the field, can shift toward all sorts of new directions.
    For now get it out there working so the people can reap the benefit of it actual use.
    Well that's my personal belief of why they are not in the field producing as we speak.
    The new refrigerants are not what they claim. And I am proving it in the field every day. Check out my next posting.
  • Ramani Aswath
    Ramani Aswath
    #-Link-Snipped-#
  • Don Ross
    Don Ross
    Ok moving toward a better design. Note the two cylinder application.
    #-Link-Snipped-#
  • Ramani Aswath
    Ramani Aswath
    This design seems to address low cost and reasonable efficiency:
    #-Link-Snipped-#
  • Don Ross
    Don Ross
    Excellent, thank you I will digest it

You are reading an archived discussion.

Related Posts

It has been out in the open that the mobile payments company Softcard is soon going to be acquired by one of the tech bigshots. The interesting part is that...
I was quite proud of my HP 32Gb dual-head USB drive until the nice people at Kingston India decided to send their USB drive to me for a review. Frankly...
A new app for iOS devices is just around the corner that lets parents have control over the smartphone use by their kids. Called 'Ignore No More', the parent app...
High efficiency,,,,Is it so high? Fades, feelings and reputations I was on a job in a pump room of a hotel. A large hotel and I had two pump sets...
Project Abstract / Summary : This project helps to increase the quality of air and its pressure @ the intake level to enhance the performance of IC engine. The control...