World Stirling Engine Collection - Mahan Heritage Centre, Geraldine
Published: 16 Jun 2025
World Stirling Engine CollectionMahan Heritage Centre, GeraldineA permanent display of the entire history of Stirling engines and Stirling cryocoolers (cold temperature refrigerators) from a replica of Robert Stirling’s approx. 1818 Edinburgh University demonstration engine through to a 2011 3kW free piston engine/generator with a 5m diameter solar mirror. Other significant items: The 1881 Lochmann Stirling engine that Sir Julius von Haast purchased for the heat engines laborat...
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ABOUT STIRLING ENGINES
Published: 15 Jun 2025
Operational Principle: Stirling cycle engines operate on a closed cycle in which a quantity of gas (called the working fluid), is alternatively heated and cooled. Mechanical power is generated by the heated gas expanding against a piston. It is then moved to a cool space and contracts before being returned through the heater to repeat the cycle. Gas control is entirely by volume changes, not by valves. The traditional working fluid is air but nitrogen is less corrosive. F...
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How do Stirling Engines Work?
Published: 15 Jun 2025
Stirling engines are heat engines that convert a temperature difference into mechanical work by alternately heating and cooling a quantity of working fluid in a closed cycle. For 19th century Stirling engines this working fluid is usually air. Later high power and high efficiency Stirling engines use pressurised hydrogen or helium.Mechanical work is extracted by heating the working fluid and causing it to expand against a piston. It is then moved to a cold space where it’s co...
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STIRLING ENGINES, DAMN THEM!
Published: 15 Jun 2025
The first Stirling engine I ever saw was a Phillips 102C at the University of Canterbury in 1962 (when I was an impressionable 15-year-old wannabe physicist).I took to it like a duckling takes to a gumboot (in the absence of anything more mother-like) and have as yet been unable to shake the bond. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I wasn't smart enough to be a physicist, so became an engineer instead, and then one thing led to another. Somehow in the middle of a more than challenging enou...
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STIRLING ENGINE POWER SCALE
Published: 15 Jun 2025
Stirling cycle air engines (especially of the unpressurised variety) are not renowned for power output. Most struggle to overcome their own friction.They've had very little influence on the world, except for a brief burst of popularity in the 19th century. This was before the advent of IC engines, when not requiring a boiler certificate was enough advantage to offset the fundamental handicap of low specific output (by size and cost).But, Stirling engines have been fascinating people ...
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