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STIRLING ENGINE
ME 200 Team 22
TESTING VIDEO
The above test is of our final prototype of the Stirling Engine.
IMPROVEMENTS MADE:
- Reduced rotation angle for the crankshaft.
- Temperature gradient created by inserting Cardboard and sealing it with hot glue to prevent loss of any air.
- Replaced the balloon with a plastic bag so as to provide more motion freedom and so that there is no additional friction when the displacer hits the bag.
- Replaced the dish scrubber with steel wool to provide a better seal inside the can.
Unfortunately our final iteration of the Stirling Engine did not work. We managed to isolate some factors which are listed below:
1) There was too much friction of the steel wool displacer with the sides of the can.
2) There is leakage of air from the outlet through which the string is connected to the displacer.
3) The crankshaft rotation angle needs to be reduced even more.
Below is a side by side comparison of our two prototypes:
Stirling Engine Prototype 1
Stirling Engine Prototype 2
How could we have improved?
Although we considered many different combinations of materials, components, and overall design parameters, our engine was unable to generate power for a continuous amount of time without human intervention. With even just a couple more weeks and a little bit more than $10, we firmly believe that our engine would become fully functional. Below, pictured is every single component that made up our final prototype with notes on how we would tweak them one last time. Scroll over each image to see the potential next steps in further improving our design!
Where to next?
We've investigated the ins and outs of a Stirling Engine and we recreated a scaled version which we've evaluated and reevaluated several times. Now, assuming that we had worked out all the kinks to create a fully functional Stirling Engine, we will determine the overall efficiency of our engine and its ability to accomplish our challenge as defined in the beginning of the project (picking up "k" quarters a distance of 2 meters above the ground).
These calculations will be discussed at length in the "Calculations and Analysis" section.
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