Yet another hair brained thought

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zorad
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Nov 27, 2008 3:52 pm
First Name: Mark
Last Name: Brown

Yet another hair brained thought

Post by zorad »

I won't reference previous posts with my other hair brained
thoughts....

So, I live on a lake and am considering putting in a dock like all
my neighbors. Recently I was staring at my LTD Miser engine from
Jerry Howell's kit and it occurred to me that docks share some
interesting things with LTD engines. If you break a dock down into
sections they are cold on one side (water), hot on the other (sun),
and have a large volume of air inside (assuming they are not
Styrofoam). And since docks are on water they typically enjoy
decent sun exposure.
What if I took 40 feet of 4 foot wide dock and built it to be 10-
4'X4' upside down LTD engines? I say upside down because that would
give you the flat top surface (for walking). You could seal
the 'running gear' on the bottom from the water by enclosing it. I
don't think the decreased contact surface from the 'running gear'
enclosure would impact performance that much as IÂ’m assuming the
water side could have less 'contact' since water conducts much
better than air. Connect them each a little bit out of phase with
each other and it should be self starting. I realize it would be
expensive but docks arenÂ’t cheap to begin with and other than
the 'running gear' most of the cost is there anyway. I'm thinking
for my application my property has a pretty decent hill on it (100+
feet above the lake). What if my Stirling dock pumped water to a
tank all day long and once the tank got full it released the water
back down into the lake through a generator. I'd hook this into the
power grid to at least offset my electic costs a little. Given 50-
60 years (maybe 100??) the dock might even pay for itself. Or if I
had water rights (I don't) I could pump the water up to gravity feed
for irrigation. I could paint the dock black to increase the
temperature then just have a garden hose connection to the water
line to/from the tank on the hill. This way I could hose it down on
the occasions I wanted to cool it for bare feet. The percentage of
time a dock is actually used is quite small to the time it isn't.

Anyway, after the engineering types tell me why it won't work
(again) I'll move onto my next Stirling obsession :). You don't
have to reply too soonÂ….I rather enjoy my time lying in bed at night
staring into the dark thinking 'what if' as well as the hours I put
into my CAD and 3D modeling programs working out the mechanics of it
all.

Mark
stan.hornbaker
Posts: 532
Joined: Thu Jun 20, 2002 6:01 pm
First Name: William S.
Last Name: Hornbaker

Yet another hair brained thought

Post by stan.hornbaker »

Mark:

Please read all of the replies to the fifth post back titled "Materials limiting the economic aspects of a Stirling engine?" and read all of the comments following it, including references. You might be just the one to come up with the new insight to Thermodynamics which would make both you famous and the Stirling engine a viable prime mover.

stan.hornbaker
Posts: 532
Joined: Thu Jun 20, 2002 6:01 pm
First Name: William S.
Last Name: Hornbaker

Response to Yet another hair brained thought

Post by stan.hornbaker »

Mark:
Go back up the list to the 11th one above titled "Practical Use" for more whynots and an approach to a practical Stirling engine to run on a specific fuel.
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