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How To Make a Low Temperature Differential (LTD) Stirling Engine


LTD stirling engines are an interesting idea. They harvest the temperature difference of the environment versus a cold object, and using this they power some pumps. I don’t know yet the efficiency of this stirling engine, but it would be a nice idea for the hot areas of the world to put in some ice in your car and then go all the way until it melts. I don’t know how much capacity the water has as a reservoir of thermal energy, but I bet that if someone would invent a mechanism that works by this principle in a car, everybody would rush to the polar caps to sell them to the car owners.

Watch the video and comment! Your opinion is worthless!



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By Ovidiu
on April 5th, 2008 		Get E-mail Updates Subscribe by RSS

cold, differential, hot, ice, Stirling engine, temperature

This entry was posted on April 5, 2008, 9:17 am and is filed under Experiments, Stirling engine, Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  1. #1 by gnomic on April 12, 2008 - 3:27 am

    The efficiency of the sterling engine is quite low, in the 20-30% range, but this is partially offset by being able to use a highly efficient external heat source should one be available. There is at least one sterling powered sub – with a nuclear engine.

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  2. #2 by michael on July 28, 2008 - 1:04 am

    When making upper and lower disks what workholding tip do you use ? Do you simply apply pressure with the tail stock or the disk is also glued on the face plate you made before ? I tried using super glue and the like with poor results… No way to turn down the disk roughly sawn by holding with adhesive.
    Thanks

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  3. #3 by Munch on May 15, 2010 - 6:45 am

    @Gnomic: Correction: the efficiency of MOST Stirling engines fall below 35%. Typical LTD engines have efficiencies less than 12% (usually falling aroudn 1% to 3% for smaller units). However, NASA has manufactured a Stirling engine having an efficiency of 48%. Keep in mind that you cannot exceed 50% — the laws of thermodynamics forbid it.

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