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I think what is hard to digest is that the 14.7psi atmospheric return stroke helps a typical gas ECE as much as it does an atmospheric Stirling engine. It's just that the atmospheric pressure adds a significant level of power to the Stirling engine, due to its low output on expansion, whereas the sa...

Here's my contention with the absolute zero thing, the best we can do on earth is exhaust down to 1atm at 300k or so. So chasing "100%" efficiency is like a baseball player chasing a 1.0 batting average, when .300 is considered excellent, and .400 is unheard. Instead, re-framing "100%...

Right.

Good stuff. The fact is that anyone, myself included, trying to beat Carnot is going to have to present rigorous testing and all inclusive data to back up the claim, and that's just to get taken seriously in the first place. Then comes the naysayers and all the rest.

Are you guys working on a molecular reactor, or a piston engine?

The added energy has increased pressure, but temperature? Possibly, but this is apparently not essential. So how, or in what way is the engine "running on" i.e. powered by a temperature difference? I think this is the unicorn forest Matt always talks about. Explain the mechanism where pre...

But Tom, you can't deny that Stirling engines can run on hot and cold temperature diffentials can you?

I'm not sure what really defines either, but by my logic it's a Beta for the following reasons. 1- Both piston and displacer share the same exact bore and axis of travel. 2- Most importantly, the displacer and power piston occupy the same space at various points of the cycle, a feature reserved for ...

If that is truly the case, then the gas laws imply that the temperature of the fluid must also be equal, everywhere. This is another case where it helps to think of energy flow into the engine, rather than heat. Glad when you chime in Mike B. I think this ties in nicely with your thoughts on "...

Over the years, I've often heard of Tesla's ambient heat engine (cold hole) and blown it off as just another one of his wacky schemes (he had many). However, a recent post made me reconsider the possibility.

Which post, Matt?

Not sure how you figure "hot" gas is expanding into the power piston. The cold gas, for the most part, is heated and expanded below the displacer as the displacer raises up and drives cold air down to be heated. Aside from that, we can generally say the gas does not actually heat up that ...

VincentG, the power piston is on the cold, plate and side. There shouldn't be any hot gas there. Right? I don't agree. The displacer is agitating the gas and imo the ideal model of just high pressure cold gas powering the piston is not what actually occurs. The piston is increasing volume and I'd b...

I'm still confused Tom. Why would the power piston NOT be warmer? Hot gas is expanding into it..

Moving this discussion from the Essex thread, I do see the potential of a regenerator. Let's say the regenerator is contained in a separate circuit outside the engine. Then if the regenerator is active(gas flowing through) only when the displacer is moving, and is isolated from the rest of the syste...

Imo the Essex works so good with such a simple design because it makes no attempt at traditional "regeneration" and instead makes an attempt at minimizing thermal mass. I would wager that any attempt at adding on a traditional regenerator would lower specific power output. Again, imo, in p...