How to make a Stirling engine at home? Stirling engine power plants - simplicity, efficiency and environmental safety Do-it-yourself Stirling engine.

Hello! Today I want to bring to your attention homemade engine, which converts any temperature difference into mechanical work:

Stirling's engine- a heat engine in which a liquid or gaseous working fluid moves in a closed volume, a kind of external combustion engine. It is based on periodic heating and cooling of the working fluid with the extraction of energy from the resulting change in the volume of the working fluid. It can work not only from fuel combustion, but also from any heat source.

I present to your attention my engine, made from pictures from the Internet:

Seeing this miracle, I had a desire to make it)) Moreover, there were many drawings and engine designs on the Internet. I will say right away: it is not difficult to do, but it is a bit problematic to adjust and achieve normal operation. It worked fine for me only the third time (I hope you won’t suffer like that)))).

Stirling engine working principle:

Everything is made from materials available to every brain:

Well, how about without sizes)))

The frame of the engine is made of wire from paper clips. All fixed wire connections are soldered()

The displacer (the disk that moves the air inside the engine) is made of drawing paper and glued with superglue (it is hollow inside):

The smaller the gap between the covers and the displacer in the upper and lower positions, the greater the efficiency of the engine.

Displacer rod - from a blind rivet (manufacturing: carefully pull out the inner part and, if necessary, clean sandpaper zero; Glue the outer part to the upper “cold” cover with the cap inward). But this option has a drawback - there is no complete tightness and there is little friction, although a drop engine oil help get rid of it.

Piston cylinder - neck from ordinary plastic bottle:

The piston casing is made of a medical glove and secured with a thread, which, after winding, must be impregnated with superglue for reliability. A disk made of several layers of cardboard is glued in the center of the casing, on which the connecting rod is fixed.

The crankshaft is made from the same paper clips as the entire engine frame. the angle between the knees of the piston and the displacer is 90 degrees. The working stroke of the displacer is 5 mm; piston - 8mm.

Flywheel - consists of two CD discs that are glued to a cardboard cylinder and planted on the crankshaft axis.

So, stop talking nonsense, I present to you engine running video:

The difficulties I had were mainly due to excessive friction and lack of exact dimensions designs. in the first case, a drop of engine oil and crankshaft alignment corrected the situation, then in the second, you had to rely on intuition))) But as you can see, everything turned out (though I completely redid the engine 3 times))))

If you have any questions - write in the comments, we'll figure it out)))

Thank you for your attention)))

Stirling's engine. For almost any do-it-yourselfer, this wonderful thing can become a real drug. It is enough to do it once and see it in action, as you want to do it again and again. The relative simplicity of these engines allows you to make them literally out of garbage. I won't dwell on general principles and device. There is a lot of information about this on the internet. For example: Wikipedia. Let's proceed immediately to the construction of the simplest low-temperature gamma-Stirling.

To build an engine with our own hands, we need two covers for glass jars. They will act as a cold and hot part. The rim is cut off from these covers with scissors

A hole is made in the center of one lid. The size of the hole should be slightly smaller than the diameter of the future cylinder.

The body of a Stirling engine is cut from a plastic milk bottle. These bottles are just divided into rings. We'll need one. It should be noted that at different varieties milk bottles may vary slightly.

The case is glued to the cover with a plastic epoxy compound or sealant.

The body of the marker is perfect as a cylinder. In this model, the cap is smaller in diameter than the marker itself and can become a piston.

A small part is cut off from the marker. At the cap, a part is cut off from the top.

This is a displacer. During the operation of the Stirling engine, it moves the air inside the case from the hot part to the cold part and vice versa. Made from sponge for washing dishes. A magnet is glued in the center.

Since the top cover is made of sheet metal, it can be attracted by a magnet. The displacer may get stuck. To prevent this from happening, the magnet must be additionally fixed with a cardboard circle.

The cap is filled with epoxy. Holes are drilled at both ends for attaching a magnet and a connecting rod holder. The threads in the holes are cut directly by the screw. These screws are for fine tuning engine. The magnet in the piston is glued to the screw and is adjusted in such a way that, being in the lower part of the cylinder, it attracts the displacer. You will also need to glue a rubber limiter on this magnet. A piece of a bicycle tube or an eraser will do. The limiter is needed so that the piston and displacer magnets do not attract too much. Otherwise, there may not be enough pressure to break the magnetic bond.

On the upper part the piston is glued with a rubber gasket. It is needed for tightness and to protect the casing from rupture.

The piston casing is made of a rubber glove. You need to cut off the little finger.

After the casing is glued, another rubber gasket is glued on top. Through rubber gaskets and the casing is pierced with an awl hole. The connecting rod holder is screwed into this hole. This holder is made from a screw and a soldered washer.

As a crankshaft holder, epoxy packaging was perfect. Exactly the same jar can be taken from under effervescent vitamins or aspirin.

The bottom of this jar is cut off and holes are made. In the upper part - to hold the crankshaft. At the bottom - for access to the connecting rod mount.

The crankshaft and connecting rod are made of wire. The white pieces are the limiter. Made from a lollipop tube. Small pieces are cut from this tube and the resulting parts are cut lengthwise. This makes them easier to put on. The height of the knee is determined by half the distance that the cylinder must travel from the lowest point to the highest point at which the magnetic connection ceases to operate.

So, we are all set for the first test. First you need to check the tightness. You need to blow into the cylinder. All joints can be lathered with dishwashing liquid. The slightest air leak and the engine will not work. If everything is in order with the tightness, you can insert the piston and secure the casing with a rubber band.

In the lower position of the cylinder, the displacer should be attracted to the top. Then the whole structure is placed on a cup with hot water. After a while, the air inside the engine will begin to heat up and push the piston out. At a certain moment, the magnetic connection will be broken and the displacer will fall to the bottom. Thus, the air in the engine will no longer come into contact with the heated part and begin to cool. The piston will start to retract. Ideally, the piston should begin to move up and down. But this may not happen. Either the pressure will not be enough to move the piston, or the air will heat up too much and the piston will not fully retract. Accordingly, this engine may have dead zones. It's not particularly scary. The main thing is that the dead zones are not too large. A flywheel is needed to compensate for dead zones.

Another very important part of this stage is that here you can feel the principle of the Stirling engine. I remember my first stirling that did not work only because I could not figure out how and why this thing works. Here, helping the piston with your hands to go up and down, you can feel how the pressure rises and falls.

This design can be slightly improved by adding a syringe to the top cover. This syringe also needs to be put on epoxy, the needle holder should be cut a little. The position of the plunger in the syringe should be in the middle position. This syringe can regulate the volume of air inside the engine. Starting and adjusting will be much easier.

So you can fit the crankshaft holder. The height of the connecting rod to the cylinder is adjusted by a screw.

The flywheel is made from a CD. The hole is sealed with plastic epoxy. Then you need to drill a hole exactly in the center. Finding the center is very easy. Using Properties right triangle inscribed in a circle. His hypotenuse passes through the center. It is necessary to attach a sheet of paper at a right angle to the outskirts of the disk. Orientation is not important. In places where the sides of the sheet intersect with the edge of the disk, we put marks. A line drawn through these marks will pass through the center. If we draw the second line in a different place, then at the intersection we will get the exact center.

All engine is ready.

We put the Stirling engine on a cup of boiling water. We wait a bit and he should earn himself. If this does not happen, you need to help him a little with your hand.

Video production process.

Stirling engine at work

A Stirling engine is an engine that can run on thermal energy. In this case, the source of heat is absolutely not important. The main thing is that there is a temperature difference, in which case this engine will work. The author figured out how to make a model of such an engine from a can of Coca-Cola.

Materials and tools
- one balloon;
- 3 cans of cola;
- electrical terminals, five pieces (for 5A);
- nipples for attaching bicycle spokes (2 pieces);
- metal wool;
- a piece of steel wire 30 cm long and 1 mm in cross section;
- a piece of thick wire made of steel or copper with a diameter of 1.6 to 2 mm;
- a pin made of wood with a diameter of 20 mm (length 1 cm);
- bottle cap (plastic);
- electrical wiring (30 cm);
- Super glue;
- vulcanized rubber (about 2 square centimeters);
- fishing line (length about 30 cm);
- a pair of weights for balancing (for example, nickel);
- CDs (3 pieces);
- pushpins;
- another one can for the manufacture of a firebox;
- heat-resistant silicone and a tin can to create water cooling.

Step one. Jars preparation
First of all, you need to take two jars and cut off their tops. If the tops are cut with scissors, the resulting notches will need to be ground off with a file.
Next, you need to cut the bottom of the jar. This can be done with a knife.

Step two. Creating an Aperture
As a diaphragm, the author used a balloon, which was reinforced with vulcanized rubber. The ball must be cut and pulled over the jar, as indicated in the picture. Then a piece of vulcanized rubber is glued to the center of the diaphragm. After the glue hardens, a hole is punched in the center of the diaphragm for installing the wire. The easiest way to do this is with a pushpin, which can be left in the hole until assembly.

Step three. Cutting and creating holes in the lid
In the walls of the cover, you need to drill two holes of 2 mm each, they are needed to install the pivot axis of the levers. Another hole must be drilled in the bottom of the lid, a wire will pass through it, which will be connected to the displacer.

On the final stage The cover must be cut as shown in the picture. This is done so that the displacer wire does not cling to the edges of the cover. For such work, utility scissors are suitable.

Step four. Drilling
In the jar, you need to drill two holes for the bearings. In this case, this was done with a 3.5 mm drill.

Step five. Creating a viewing window
A viewing window must be cut into the engine housing. Now it will be possible to observe how all the nodes of the device function.

Step six. Terminal modification
You need to take the terminals and remove the plastic insulation from them. Then a drill is taken, and through holes are made at the edges of the terminals. In total, you need to drill 3 terminals, while two should remain undrilled.

Step seven. Creating leverage
As a material for creating levers, copper wire is used, the diameter of which is 1.88 mm. How exactly to bend the knitting needles is shown in the pictures. You can also use steel wire, it's just more pleasant to work with copper wire.

Step eight. Creation of bearings
To make bearings, you will need two bicycle nipples. The hole diameter needs to be checked. The author drilled them through with a 2 mm drill.

Step nine. Installation of levers and bearings
The levers can be installed directly through the viewing window. One end of the wire should be long, it will have a flywheel. The bearings must be firmly in place. If there is a backlash, they can be glued.

Step ten. Creating a Displacer
The displacer is made of steel wool for polishing. To create a displacer, a steel wire is taken, a hook is made on it, and then the required amount of cotton wool is wound around the wire. The displacer must be large enough to move freely in the can. The total height of the displacer should not exceed 5 cm.

As a result, on one side of the cotton wool, it is necessary to form a spiral of wire so that it does not come out of the cotton wool, and on the other side a loop is made of the wire. Next, a fishing line is tied to this loop, which is subsequently pulled through the center of the diaphragm. The vulcanized rubber should be in the middle of the container.

Step 11 Create a Pressure Tank
It is necessary to cut the bottom of the jar so that about 2.5 cm remains from its base. The displacer together with the diaphragm must be placed in the tank. After that, this whole mechanism is installed at the end of the can. The diaphragm needs to be tightened a little so that it does not sag.

Then you need to take the terminal that was not drilled and stretch the fishing line through it. The knot must be glued so that it does not move. The wire must be well lubricated with oil and at the same time make sure that the displacer easily pulls the line along.
Step 12 Create Push Rods
Push rods connect the diaphragm and levers. This is done with a piece of copper wire 15 cm long.

Step 13 Create and install the flywheel
To create a flywheel, 3 old CDs are used. A wooden rod is used as the central part. After installing the flywheel, the crankshaft rod is bent, so the flywheel will not fall off.

At the final stage, the whole mechanism is assembled together.

In which the working fluid (gaseous or liquid) moves in a closed volume, in fact it is a kind of external combustion engine. This mechanism is based on the principle of periodic heating and cooling of the working fluid. Extraction of energy occurs from the emerging volume of the working fluid. The Stirling engine works not only from the energy of burning fuel, but also from almost any source. This mechanism was patented by the Scot Robert Stirling in 1816.

The described mechanism, despite the low efficiency, has a number of advantages, first of all, it is simplicity and unpretentiousness. Thanks to this, many amateur designers are trying to assemble a Stirling engine with their own hands. Some succeed, and some don't.

In this article we will consider Stirling with our own hands from improvised materials. We will need the following blanks and tools: a tin can (you can use it from under sprats), sheet metal, paper clips, foam rubber, elastic, a bag, wire cutters, pliers, scissors, a soldering iron,

Now let's start assembling. Here detailed instructions to how to make a Stirling engine with your own hands. First you need to wash the jar, clean the edges with sandpaper. We cut out a circle from sheet metal so that it lies on the inner edges of the can. We determine the center (for this we use a caliper or ruler), make a hole with scissors. Next we take copper wire and a paper clip, straighten the paper clip, make a ring at the end. We wind a wire on a paper clip - four tight turns. Next, we solder the resulting spiral with a small amount of solder. Then it is necessary to carefully solder the spiral to the hole in the cover so that the stem is perpendicular to the cover. The paperclip should move freely.

After that, it is necessary to make a communicating hole in the lid. We make a displacer from foam rubber. Its diameter should be slightly smaller than the diameter of the can, but there should not be a large gap. The height of the displacer is a little more than half of the can. We cut a hole in the center of the foam rubber for the sleeve, the latter can be made of rubber or cork. We insert the rod into the resulting sleeve and glue everything. The displacer must be placed parallel to the cover, this important condition. Next, it remains to close the jar and solder the edges. The seam must be sealed. Now we proceed to the manufacture of the working cylinder. To do this, cut out a strip 60 mm long and 25 mm wide from tin, bend the edge by 2 mm with pliers. We form a sleeve, after that we solder the edge, then it is necessary to solder the sleeve to the cover (above the hole).

Now you can start making the membrane. To do this, cut off a piece of film from the package, push it a little with your finger inside, press the edges with an elastic band. Next, you need to check the correctness of the assembly. We heat the bottom of the can on fire, pull the stem. As a result, the membrane should bend outward, and if the rod is released, the displacer should lower under its own weight, respectively, the membrane returns to its place. In the event that the displacer is made incorrectly or the soldering of the can is not tight, the rod will not return to its place. After that, we make the crankshaft and racks (the spacing of the cranks should be 90 degrees). The height of the cranks should be 7 mm and the displacers 5 mm. The length of the connecting rods is determined by the position of the crankshaft. The end of the crank is inserted into the cork. So we looked at how to assemble a Stirling engine with our own hands.

Such a mechanism will work from an ordinary candle. If you attach magnets to the flywheel and take the coil aquarium compressor, then such a device can replace a simple electric motor. With your own hands, as you can see, making such a device is not at all difficult. There would be a desire.

Ecology of consumption. Science and technology: The Stirling motor is most often used in situations where a device for converting thermal energy is required, which is simple and efficient.

Less than a hundred years ago, internal combustion engines tried to win their rightful place in the competition among other machines and moving mechanisms available. At the same time, in those days, the superiority of the gasoline engine was not so obvious. Existing steam-powered machines were distinguished by their quietness, excellent power characteristics for that time, ease of maintenance, the ability to use different kind fuel. In the further struggle for the market, internal combustion engines prevailed due to their efficiency, reliability and simplicity.

The further race for the improvement of aggregates and driving mechanisms, which gas turbines and rotary engine varieties entered in the middle of the 20th century, led to the fact that, despite the supremacy of the gasoline engine, attempts were made to introduce completely the new kind engines - thermal, first invented back in 1861 by a Scottish priest named Robert Stirling. The engine was named after its creator.

STIRLING ENGINE: THE PHYSICAL SIDE OF THE ISSUE

To understand how a Stirling tabletop power plant works, one should understand general information on the principles of operation of heat engines. Physically, the principle of operation is to use mechanical energy, which is obtained by expanding the gas during heating and its subsequent compression during cooling. To demonstrate the principle of operation, an example can be given based on an ordinary plastic bottle and two pots, one of which contains cold water, the other hot.

When lowering the bottle into cold water, the temperature of which is close to the temperature of ice formation, with sufficient cooling of the air inside the plastic container, it should be closed with a stopper. Further, when the bottle is placed in boiling water, after some time the cork “shoots” with force, since in this case the work done by the heated air is many times greater than that done during cooling. When the experiment is repeated many times, the result does not change.

The first machines that were built using the Stirling engine faithfully reproduced the process demonstrated in the experiment. Naturally, the mechanism required improvement, consisting in the use of part of the heat that the gas lost during the cooling process for further heating, allowing heat to be returned to the gas to accelerate heating.

But even the application of this innovation could not save the situation, since the first Stirlings were different large sizes at low power output. In the future, more than once attempts were made to modernize the design to achieve a power of 250 hp. led to the fact that in the presence of a cylinder with a diameter of 4.2 meters, the real output power that the Stirling power plant produced at 183 kW was actually only 73 kW.

All Stirling engines operate on the principle of the Stirling cycle, which includes four main phases and two intermediate ones. The main ones are heating, expansion, cooling and compression. As the transition stage, the transition to the cold generator and the transition to heating element. useful work, performed by the engine, is based solely on the temperature difference between the heating and cooling parts.

MODERN STIRLING CONFIGURATIONS

Modern engineering distinguishes three main types of such engines:

• alpha stirling, the difference of which is in two active pistons located in independent cylinders. Of all three options, this model has the highest power, having the highest temperature of the heated piston;
• beta stirling, based on one cylinder, one part of which is hot and the other is cold;
• gamma-stirling, which, in addition to the piston, also has a displacer.

The production of the power plant at Stirling will depend on the choice of engine model, which will take into account all the positive and negative aspects of such a project.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

Thanks to their design features These engines have a number of advantages, but they are not without drawbacks.

Stirling's desktop power plant, which can not be bought in a store, but only from amateurs who independently collect similar devices, relate:

• large dimensions, which are caused by the need for constant cooling of the working piston;
• usage high pressure what is required to improve the performance and power of the engine;
• heat loss, which occurs due to the fact that the generated heat is transferred not to the working fluid itself, but through a system of heat exchangers, whose heating leads to a loss in efficiency;
• a sharp decrease in power requires the use special principles different from traditional gasoline engines.

Along with the disadvantages, power plants operating on Stirling units have undeniable advantages:

• any type of fuel, since, like any engines that use heat energy, this engine is able to function at a temperature difference in any environment;
• economy. These devices can be an excellent replacement for steam units in cases where it is necessary to process solar energy, giving out an efficiency of 30% higher;
• environmental Safety. Since the kW tabletop power plant does not generate exhaust torque, it does not produce noise and does not emit into the atmosphere harmful substances. Ordinary heat acts as a source of power, and the fuel burns out almost completely;
• constructive simplicity. For his work, Stirling will not require additional parts or fixtures. It is able to start independently without the use of a starter;
• increased resource of working capacity. Due to its simplicity, the engine can provide more than one hundred hours of continuous operation.

STIRLING ENGINE APPLICATIONS

The Stirling motor is most often used in situations where an apparatus for converting thermal energy is required, which is simple, while the efficiency of other types of thermal units is significantly lower under similar conditions. Very often, such units are used in food pumping equipment, cold rooms, submarines, energy storage batteries.

One of promising directions areas of use for Stirling engines are solar power plants, since this unit can be successfully used to convert the energy of sunlight into electrical energy. To carry out this process, the engine is placed in the focus of a mirror that accumulates the sun's rays, which provides permanent illumination of the area requiring heating. This allows you to focus solar energy on a small area. The fuel for the engine in this case is helium or hydrogen. published