Needing a engine designer and builder - esp anyone that already has built an engine

[ldoran]

So you can make a cool little engine can you? Well, I have the way to
make it economical.

I have been working on ideas/methods/technologies, the ways and means
of keeping a temperature difference of about 500 to 800 degrees on
about 10,000lbs of compressed air moving between the two sides of a
sterling at about 1000 to 3000 rpm. I am wanting to find someone or
company interested in exploring my developments on a small test unit.
The test unit will be in the 100lbs or so of compressed air.

The key to making a sterling engine economical is being able to
sustain the temperature difference economically on enough mass (large
enough scale) over an extended period of time. I am not looking for
some super efficient engine, I am needing a simple, sturdy reliable
engine. One that can use air that has been compressed to about 150psi.
It is not the engine that will make it economical, it is the COST of
the heat and/or cold source, which is what I have been working on.

What I am saying is this, you make a good engine and I will take care
of the FUEL part of it.

Now I know that each sterling is built based on the hot and cold
sources. So once we have been in contact and worked some things out,
we can the start talking about specifics. I am also ready to pay for
this test engine to be built, materials and machining of parts. Of
course is this not a huge budget, but I think enough to build a small
working prototype.

No, I am not here to share ideas and be all opensource. I am here to
find some technical help to build real economically viable sterling
engines, ones that are true money makers.

Lee

[bptdude___2569]

Lee,

Has it occured to you, that if you want is power production, and you are swimming in compressed air at a large industrial scale, you might just bleed off a little bit of the air, through one of many designs that can easily covert compressed air into a working machine.

Here is one:

http://www.greensteamengine.com/

They call it a steam engine, but steam engines are really compressed air engines, and vice versa.

I can produce 500 to 600 degrees too, but sadly don't have the compressed air.

:)

So, I want a Stirling.

- Joe

[ldoran]

Thank you very much for taking time to reply! Have a great day and best of luck to you as well.

Lee

[stan.hornbaker]

Go back two threads to "200 W Stirling" and read carefully.
When you have to take heroic measures to make a Stirling engine of low Carnot efficiency compared to other prime movers #- WHY? Is the extra complexity of the overall system justified on thermal or cost basis?

Unless I'm badly mistaken there are signifigant differences in steam and air engines and compressors.

[bptdude___2569]

The Green steam engine listed in the thread, can indeed be run by compressed air. If you had a steam choochoo train, you could take a hose from the steam tank, and run your compressed air power tools.

I won't drag you down into how they can be different definitions, which of course they are. To be creative, you have to be clever and help people understand relationship similarities.

Hmm, I once thought of using a common steam generator known as a pressure cooker to drive an air drill hooked to a mini electrical generator, but the pressure would be low.

Maybe I could feed water to an air compressor tank and put a fire under it, making use of the high pressure the tank can handle and the built in safety valve.

Sure these are goofy designs, and tons of reasons why they are not efficient, etc. etc.

The point is, we are here to find out new ways to build and deply Stirling engines that beat the cost problem and do useful work.

It is that old "out of the box" thing.

How can I rearrange the relationship of pieces to try something new?

How can I take heat { or cold } that can not be used now, and make a machine go round and round in a useful way?

In this web site, we are not allowed to play with ideas, like a science class?

Yeah, things might pervert standard definitions, or might even go BOOM! Isn't that the fun of it?

:)

[bptdude___2569]

I felt kinda bad about the last post, as Bill has been very nice to me, especially in private emails. Here is something nicer, then.

The Stirling has the theory to be the best of the heat engines. Nobody seems to be able to make one even close to the theory, or even cost effective or with adequate power.

There are other externally heated engines;

The Rankin engine, a close cycle engine that uses state change from liquid to gas and back. It has it uses too.

The Organic Rankin engine, which uses a lower state change temperature. People have built these from used auto parts and power them by very cheap solar trough. Why more people don't build this in their backyard I have no idea. Look up a project at MIT to see more.

The steam engine. A workhorse of a century, engineered to near perfection. An open cycle used in both piston and turbine. These are still used for coal and nuclear plants, and will be around for a long time. Not as dangerous as they used to be.

And our favorite, the Stirling. The best in theory but nobody seems to be able to figure out how to give birth to the wonder we all hope for. I'm not sure people are focused on why.

Yeah, so, we all know that.. and ... ?

The Stirling-acoustic is an example of perverting definitions. The passing back and forth of the hot/cold boundry is not gradual, but a compressed wall in the gas. A compressed wall in gas of equal temperature is what classic sound is, actually a wave of compression. But, it happens to be close enough to the same thing. The compression wave of a Stirling-acoustic can be heard and can be very loud.

The Stirling having no state change and capable of being built into Stirling-acoustic configurations is still early in the design stages. The use of resonat cavities is done a bit, and was the secret of the Stirling-acoustic that got launched on the space probe to run a 100 years without needing tweaking.

I say all this, because I want you to not lose faith in the Stirling, yet understand, that all we know, is not really nealy enough, even for those who spent much of their life on it.

I had a dream the other night. I dreamed I got massive funding to develop a Stirling engine for a submarine. Not to power it, but as a sonic weapon. It was a dark dream as we all must have, but why and how to make the Stirling the engine of the future for peace is out there. I sorta know what needs to be done.

Please forgive when I write harshly.

[rtopf]

Lee,

It is hard to judge how serious your proposal is when you don't use the proper spelling of the engine.

I have reviewed many "claims" of potecial heat/cold sources only to find out the claimee has not done any serious research. Chances are its been done before.

I am curious however. In your first paragrah you throw out engine parameters like you have a conceptual design completed. I am confused by your "10,000 Lbs" statment as pounds alone make no sense. Do you really mean PSI? What about volume? is this to be a tiny high pressure machine?

In the second paragraph you indcate that you have only the fuel sorurce and are wanting a engine for test. This too is difficult to understand since 10,000 PSI would not scale to 150 PSI using the same materials.

I can also think of seveal FREE heat sources making the idea of cheap fuel mute. The system cost and ROI of any practical design is more likley tied to the engine, not the fuel.

May I sugest you re-word your post to make it clear what you provide and what you need. What is the temp of the heat source. How much power do you expect per dollar of investment?

I persoanlly have several Sirling engine designs avalible for development that would fit the 150 PSI requirement. I also have prototyping facilities. Feel free to contact me off board at rtopf@socal.rr.com if you like.

Rick

[emgood2002]

I am a stirling engine designer - though I have not worked with compressed air as the "fuel" source. The big question is the efficiency of the design. Would you have better efficiency bleeding off the air and turning a turbine of some kind? Or can you create a large enough delta T with your compressed air to make an efficient Stirling engine? Also, what energy source would you use to get the compressed air? I am not exactly sure what you are doing so I would need more information - I may not understand your concept clearly, but would be willing to look at it. I should add that I am not a builder of engines though I do the analysis to design them.

[bptdude___2569]

Hi Eric,

Very nice of you to offer to help him. From what we gathered so far, it appears he has some large industrial size capacity of compressed air, for some purpose. To generata small amounts of eletrcity, using compressed air as "fuel" is actally trivial.

Here is a link to an example engine to use:
http://www.greensteamengine.com/

In concept, to the actual engine part, supplying steam or compressed air is the same thing, just one is wet. For his purposes, bleeding off some air to make electticity could produce a plant that does not need outside grid power except to run whatever makes the compressed air, even if you had to "jump start it" with grid power. But that really is another concept.

If he wants LOTS of energy, so he doesn't want to tap the compressed air, but the place has more excess heat than they know what to do with, than there is your challange for your Stirling design. I think he will find the size and cost are not going to be worth it. But who knows.... good luck.

- Joe

[stan.hornbaker]

Lets all come down to earth. First the "Little Green Steam Engine is a tinker-toy and NOT a realistic power producing engine for any working fluid, be it gas, steam, or other medium.

Compressed air is a very useful medium for power storage, transmission, and application IN ITS PROPER PLACE. For stationary use and automotive motive power it is of very limited application. A thorough search of the internet on the subject will turn up many scams and some authentic technical papers on the subject to confirm the above.

Since THIS THREAD IS NOT concerned with Stirling engines but making a Stirling engine into something else, IT IS SUBJECT TO REMOVAL WITHOUT NOTICE!