How A Stirling Engine Works

A Demonstration of a low temperature differential Stirling engine and a
3D animated illustration of how it works.

This has been updated from the last Stirling engine video with countless improvements including a demo of a real Stirling engine, voice over dialog, reworked animation and rendering and much more.

The animation shows the simple concepts in detail and how they add up to make a working Stirling engine.

In the demo the Stirling engine is shown running on a cup of hot water and on a block of ice running in reverse.

It has been so fun to see everyone's comments, views and so on since I posted this video. As I mentioned in a comment, for me this was more about the Blender 3D animation software than it was about Stirling engines because it took so much time and effort to animate it. Stirling engines have also been a hobby of mine. I chose the Stirling engine topic because that seemed like something I could offer a little bit of information that non-engineers like myself could understand, and something that wasn't already extensively covered online.

I am not a professional Blender animator so this took months of effort in my spare time watching Blender tutorials, modeling, story boarding, animating, rendering, video editing, closed captioning, finding music, etc. The final cut of the animation took about 3 weeks straight of 24 hour rendering. One reason I don't have more videos is because the couple of videos I have took so much work that I got kind of burned out. But in the end I've sure enjoyed these projects and all of your comments, etc. Thanks for watching!

[TheAngryCanary]

Great Video! Finally really made me understand that the displacer piston is not affected by pressure differentials, but rather is moved by the power piston. All the other animations I've ever seen made me think the displacer piston was pushed on the bottom by expanding hot air while the top was pulled up by the vacuum of condensing air. I finally understand that only the power piston is effected, because it has one side to atmospheric pressure, and the displacer piston is just there to move around the gas so the gas is expanding or condensing overall... whew! So weird that I never really understood that before... now I can look at a stirling engine without my head hurting. Thank you!

[SteveMould]

This really helped me understand my Stirling engine. Thank you!

[mikeportjogger]

I've seen a lot of videos trying to describe how Stirling engines work. Yours is by far the clearest.

Thank you! After watching 4 other "How it works" videos, I still didn't have a clue. Now I do. Thank you very much. Perfectly explained!!!

[ChayDonohoe]

That's probably the best explanation I've see on how a stirling engine works. Thanks!

[otakufish]

Just watched 5 other videos about how a Sterling engine works before finding this one. This was the first one that actually made sense. Thanks for explaining the concept and not just the construction =)

[AhmedQais]

Thank you, I searched a lot for a full explanation that explains the details of the mechanism of work, and this explanation is the best

[graphixkillzzz]

I watched two other Stirling engine "how it works" vids, both were over ten minutes, I didn't get either of them being the expanding gases makes it all move. This vid at less than five minutes explained it all much more efficiently. Than you for this vid :)

[coreycarpenter]

I am only half way through and this is already the best explanation of a Stirling Engine. Thank you.

[pepsiatlas]

what a great explanation. i think the reason it works so well is leaving the dispalcer out to begin with.

[gregs]

This is the only video in the results for “how a sterling engine works” that is worth watching. Thank you!

[Canxd]

This is litteraly the only video on stirling engines that actually explains it well.

[RoyArrowood]

Thank you! I appreciate that you broke it down to where each force is acting when and what the cause of the force is. Great explanation!

[kieranfester]

This is a really good video. Compared to the other videos I've seen, this guy really knows how to explain things well. He introduces concepts and computer generated models sequentially so that you understand operations from the simple on to the more complex. BRAVO 👏 Others can definitely learn from you

[teckeleddie]

Micheal, thank you for your time, effort and very simple explanation. I think these models are brilliant, and i am planning to build one myself.

[bluehill]

Great Video! Yours is the first one that I've come across where someone actually talks and
D explains what's going on. Easier to grasp the concept, at least for me. I was starting to think that none of the Sterling Engine crowd could speak. Thanks for a great and informative video!

[VolkswagenPassatGLXVR]

Thank you! I wanted to build a stirling engine but all of the sources I could find would tell the function in a confusing manner, with different sources giving different answers. This really helped!

[kitten_processing_inc]

You are the first person I have encountered who can explain a Sterling engine in plain English. Thanks, for this useful video!

[antoniojusticiaruiz]

You really made a fantastic video, the best one about stirling engines by far, you really explained the basics in such a way everybody can understand it. Great job

[limrc]

Best explanation of the engine that uses the power piston! Thanks for sharing!!