Stirling engine coupling with electric propulsion

[Mathew]

Thank you for your answers.
do you know where i could find the characteristics of the Stirling engine installed in the Torino at the time?

And what are the latest advances in adapting this engine to the car?

[chatelot16]

the torino it was a time when the energy was not expensive ... if the torino went into oblivion it may mean that it was worse than the gasoline engine

I have studied stirling a little: I have no hope of making a better performance than a current combustion engine with a stirling ... and in addition I have means of improving the combustion engine

the interest of sirling, it is especially to use heat like solar

and there is not only the output, there is also the weight: the stirling are heavier than the internal combustion engine: it is even often heavier than the steam engine

[quartz]

Did you know ?
Stirling engines in spacecraft !!

A heat pipe is used to transfer thermal energy from the bottom to a pair of Stirling engines - a closed loop engine that spans thermal differences

The heat source is uranium !!!!
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[Gaston]

Nuclear thermoelectric generators (usually plutonium, not uranium which does not provide enough power) have been used in spacecraft for several decades.

Replacing them with a Stirling engine system improves efficiency (per kg of "fuel"), and therefore perhaps reduces the mass of the spacecraft.

This is probably not adaptable to all cases, due to the vibrations generated by the engine and the lack of possibility of maintenance.

[quartz]

Yes uranium is less caught,
but relatively to the scarcity of plutonium,
manufacturers are developing uranium generators !!
so we will pollute space too ... at the same time there are fewer people per km²

[Gaston]

In this case, the principle is different, we use a chain reaction on Uranium (as in EDF plants) instead of the heat emitted by the "natural" disintegration of Plutonium.

The complexity is still increasing considerably ... and it is not certain that the expected weight gain is there.

By the way, we will not pollute space less with Plutonium than with enriched Uranium ...

[Remundo]

To my knowledge, uranium is not used, but high-activity short-lived radioisotopes. For short missions, we prefer Polonium 210, for missions spanning one or more decades, Americium 241 or Plutonium 238.

As in the field of RTG (radioisotope thermoelectric generator)

The thermoelectric effect is simpler to exploit (mechanical zero), but of poor efficiency.

The Stirling has a good yield, but is more complex (mechanical ...) There are Stirling with free piston coupled to a linear alternator. Developed among others by NASA.

Note that in space, we can obtain a very strong thermal gradient by pointing the sun on one side (+ 200 ° C and more by concentrating the radiation) and leaving in the shade on the other (space vacuum , -150 ° C or less). This is ideal for high efficiency Stirling.

State of the art summary of Stirling machines on this page

[Gaston]

To my knowledge, uranium is not used, but high-activity short-lived radioisotopes.

In current systems, it is true, but there are studies to use uranium, not for its natural decay which is much too slow (therefore produces a very weak power), but in an identical chain reaction to that of nuclear power plants.

The Stirling has a good yield, but is more complex (mechanical ...).

In addition, a large part of the space platforms are very sensitive to vibrations.
We spend treasures of imagination to finely point an antenna or a mirror, it is not so that a piston oscillating a few meters away comes to vibrate the whole

[Remundo]

That is true...