Completed Stirling Engine Assembly

Last crawled date: 1 year, 11 months ago

The Stirling Engine is a type of heat engine that was invented by Robert Stirling in 1816.
Unlike in the commonly used internal combustion engines the working fluid (most
commonly air) inside the Stirling Engine is permanently contained within the system. Heat
engines use four main processes to convert heat energy into mechanical power; these are
compression, heating, expansion and cooling. In the design that will be considered this is
achieved by a mechanism to transfer the working fluid back and forth between hot and
cold parts of the engine causing it’s temperature to fluctuate. This causes corresponding
fluctuations in gas pressure, which would then act on the working piston driving it up and
down the cylinder. The oscillations of the working piston are converted to rotary motion by
means of a connecting rod, crankshaft and flywheels. The rotating mass in the flywheels
will develop momentum and help the engine to run smoothly due to the stored kinetic
energy.