Stirling Engine
Function
The Stirling engine converts with a very high efficiency thermal energy into mechanical energy. The manner of production of the thermal energy is not fixed.
Tim Lohrmann has pointed out that the engine illustrated on top with two pistons indeed operates after the principle invented by Stirling, yet the engine above was developed in 1871 by Alexander Rider in the USA. Picture 2
displays a model of the real, in 1816 from the pastor and tinkerer Robert Stirling (1790 - 1878) invented engine with additional displacement piston of the firm Leybold. Featuring considerably lower pressures, it should
replace the substantially more dangerous steam engine.
How it works
How it works can be easier explained in the upper model (see picture 1). On the left side always the same working volume is heated and presses the piston to BDC. If the left piston moves to TDC, it delivers on its way
to the right cylinder its heat to the heat exchanger. It warms up again when it reaches via the heat exchanger the left cylinder and is heated there.
Unfavourably about this system for vehicles is its bad controllability and the high weight to power ratio.
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