6 ways to get more power from your stirling engine | Create a powerful stirling engine

Short video where I explain 6 ways to get more power out of your homemade DIY stirling engine.
Questions and comments are welcome!

[curious]

Please make part 2 . And say about
1. Best radios of basic heat chamber ( homemade, for example cold drinks cans )
2. Best radios of power piston
3. height of the engine.
4. length of engine
5 . Burnings materiel
6. Height of the burning chamber.
Please make part 2 with this type of question
🤭 Thank you 🤭

[blueckaym]

You missed few things.

That the temperature difference should be as close to 0 Kelvin as possible. It's basic ratio in the heat engine efficiency formula.
For example 200 degrees temp. difference in the range of 293 (to 493 degrees for 100 degrees diff.) is proportionally smaller than for example 73 (temp at which air is liquid) to 273.
It's simply because whatever the temperature difference you're using (200 degrees in the example) is smaller part of higher temperatures than it is in lower temperatures. And Entropy operates based on the real Zero (ie Kelvin).
I know -200C is not in the range of your typical kids toy use or even car temp.range :) but if you're using it for stationary engine and are keeping half the temperature difference in a cryogenic cold tank you can use liquified air as a thermal battery and later use that cryogenic tank difference to a flame (or better sun's concentrated heat energy) to drive a Stirling engine.
(Note that the Stirling engine being reversible means you can actually use energy to pump heat In & Out of the respective Hot & Cold tanks - ie charging the thermal-battery).

Also air is not a good gas to use in the chamber, there are gasses that can transfer heat much faster. Ideally hydrogen, but if you're worried about it exploding, helium is also great one!

Also to increase total power you can increase the pressure in the chamber. For example increasing the pressure 10 times will increase the work done 10 times, and won't change the way the engine operates are it depends on the temperature difference and thermal conductivity, but not pressure.

You mentioned roughen up the Cold & Hot ends of the chambers to increase thermal conductivity, but sanding it won't help much, and the speed of the thermal conductivity is really important!
One solution which I've seen a company do is to use very fine fins on the end of the respective chamber, which are dipped in some fluid with high thermal conductivity.
The idea is that the fluid doesn't compress (noticibly) under pressure, so it won't change the way the engine works, but will allow the fins to exchange temp. much faster with the working gas when that respective chamber is expanded, and then transfer that temp. into the fluid reservoir when that chamber is contracted and thus the fins dipped in the fluid (increasing the thermal conductivity on the outside of the chamber is easier).

I believe Stirling engine can be a clean and efficient solution for converting Sun's energy (or other natural heat sources) to usable energy, which then can be transferred in (electric) tools & vehicles that are not convenient or compatible with Stirling engine.

[footballera-ip]

Thanks. But could you possibly explain what diameter should the cylinder be to get more power? And what diameter should displacer be?

[HighMileageOffroad]

Help does this only work for the ones made to sit on top of a cup of hot water or does this also work for other styles of stirling engines?

[andrewvanderschaaf]

Does the air pressure inside the chamber affect efficiency of the engine?

[FizykaTV]

Coller and waterpump driven by Stirling engine itself ;)

[brianredmond]

Any stirling engine that makes any real power seems to be pressurised.