Scientists from China have achieved a breakthrough in engine development: They have developed a so-called thermoacoustic Stirling engine. It is said to be extremely quiet and practically wear-free. The technology behind it has been known for some time. However, the new development is probably significantly more powerful than all previous engines of this type. And this could mean major progress for space travel and military technology.
Watch this video to find out what the thermoacoustic Stirling engine is all about, why it could be the future of space travel and why Stirling engines have not yet caught on!
This video was made by my editorial team. Responsible from the editorial team: Lukas Laroche, Florian Krupka, Jacob Beautemps; Editing: Neo Sanjuan Thiele, Aron Kamenz
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:43 Stirling engine background
01:27 How a Stirling engine works
02:43 How a thermoacoustic Stirling engine works
05:58 Applications
07:14 The big problem
08:29 Conclusion
Sources:
Source 1:
https://www.spektrum.de/lexikon/physik/stirling-motor/13887
Source 2:
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/21/7009
Source 3:
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3240924/chinese-scientists-bring-record-breaking-stirling-generator-life-while-nasas-patent-stays-paper
Source 5:
https://www.nature.com/articles/20624
Source 6:
https://futurezone.at/science/china-antrieb-u-boot-leise-stirling-motor-generator-atom-raumschiff-nuklear-thermoakustik/402669715
Source 7:
https://www.adac.de/rund-ums-fahrzeug/zweirad/fahrrad-ebike-pedelec/kauf-ausruestung/fahrrad-reifendruck/
Source 8:
https://technology.nasa.gov/patent/LEW-TOPS-80
Source 9:
https://academic.oup.com/ijlct/article/11/2/141/2198425
Source 10:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/er.4533
Source 11:
https://www.nms.ac.uk/explore-our-collections/stories/science-and-technology/stirling-engine/
Source 12:
https://www.chemie.de/lexikon/Geschichte_des_Stirlingmotors.html
Source 13:
https://www.chemie.de/lexikon/Stirlingmotor.html
Source 14:
https://sciperspective.com/files/sciperspective/fcda8b41-571f-4328-8f45-b92844af50db.pdf
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43 Comments
Stirling engine is so elegant! Lack of automotive aplications in hybrid vehicles is puzzling. Thanks for the video!
Nice vid 👍
https://youtu.be/KbnGlcQiL1c?si=S5PQCoQv8EyWYxgy
so why its not being used more widely yet.
If it can be powered by sound, some kind of chime can be calibrated then sound sent through by ev battery, probably with alternator then recovering some charge to limit draw payload on ev batter, then allowing regenerative braking to possibly top off batter without charging stations.
These are my CAD files. It must have been back doomed through DropBox.
Bummer. It happened again.
Not especially for space travel but the molten salt thorium reacto can use this as an addendum for electrical power added to use part of the power for electricity and using the rest of the hot fluid for process heat in chemical use. This would drain off very little heat using the rest for process heat. Not sure how large this should be,(how many kilowattes is needed for electrical power).like a bunch of these units used for electrical power of say 500 kilowattes, and doesn't need cooling to produce this power. If it would run for 40 or 50 years this electrical power would need little maintenance. Might need exotic metals for the long lasting effects.
Blink, bro
China has finally caught up with 1980s Sweden's Gotland-class submarines. Good Job.
Find a cheap yet powerful Stirling engine. There's no such thing!
ABSOLUTE PUFF PIECE. Don't waste your time.
Well in that case it’s not silent. Also not very powerful and not very effective or useful.
Unfortunately, after listening to 9 minutes of this video, it still did not explain a practical way how the new Stirling engine gets its motion from sound waves, just a bit of theory of past engines.
Be careful believing what china is telling you.
Unless my mistake, stirlings are different than thermoacoustic engines …
Both , as Manson-Guise motors, are classified as hot air engines ;
The most frustrating part of these technologies is that the people smart enough to build them only work for governments that are only interested in using them for military power and prowess. Regular citizens and civilians are still stuck with 100+ year old technologies for getting electricity like coal and fossil fuels. Solar is terribly inefficient and outrageously expensive. I wish the Bedini motor had been mass produced.
Submarines, for safety purposes almost always maintain a positive buoyancy.
Compressed Helium? This is a non-starter.
I doubt very much that you can extract that much power just from soundwaves, they are by far not energetic enough, much less sound waves in a submarine, a thing that is avoided in everything a submarine does. You would need A LOT of acoustic in order to get that much kinetic energy out of it. So this seems to be a clear hype and baseless claim, which is typical for countries like Russia and China, they just claim stuff and know that western media will eat it up and claim (for them) that it is real and factual, without ever being able to validate nor confirm it.
Globe,, Gullible and Goofy all start with GGGGG This is undeniable proof, the Earth is flat.
Might involve piezoelectric components?
It's been used in nuclear submarines and space probes for decades …. Long ago before Chineses.
at 4:56 its showing a table called "general information of manufactured free piston stirling engines" so google that and click on first result its a pdf from NASA dated 1987 on page 12 is a engine strangely the same as that supposedly china created
@German Science Guy
The acoustic engine is 2 or more piezo crystals that push on eachother with their mechanical ultrasound waves to induce electricity in eachother(voltage) without conducting electricity through the crystal so their dissipation is minimal. Their conversion coeff is 30-50%
so it's not the 2 piston engine.
ingredients are: Lead oxide 60-72%, zironcium oxide 5-25%, titanium oxide 5-15%, lanthanum oxide 0-4%, nickel oxide 0-7% and niobium oxide 0-20%.
Their resonance frequency is 27MHz (for uuartz).
Hook them in a glass tube so they hit eachother and induce voltage, then wire them in series to add voltage. Siphon current and voltage back through to not waste it as IT IS NOT CONDUCTED by the piezo crystals and electricity can not travel through them. The elecricity is coplanar with he crystal and "bumps" into it. The entire idea is to miniizie voltage split and electrical loss this way while amplification is occuring.
Another way to do this is to take tesla coils lined up and that works. Another way to do this is to take 3 regular transformer (preferably rodin) and have 2 wound opposite directions to cancel eachotehrs impedance out with destructive interference. Another way to do this is the 2 piston engine. Another way to do this is carbon rods arch and heating method on pyrocrystals (same concept as the tesla coils almost)
HEHEHEHHEEHEH Sweden already has that for decades ! An external combustion engine gives as much power as you input on it and the material and eat extganger can receive! PROPAGANDA!!!
China doesn't invent anything, they steal intellectual property and call it their own…
I think you forgot to mention that unlike internal combustion engines, generating heat for sterling engine doesn't produce NOx gases
Don't bring me NASA trash if you want to speak about real science and truth ❤
People during the industrial revolution: omg Stirling Engine is so inefficient and weak
Militaries 400 years later: haha silent submarines go brrrrrrr
"Magic that works, so it is science." I love it!
You could have built a demonstration model by using a rubber diaphragm on end of a tube with magnets & coil
Sounds like America has had the tech since the late 70s early 80 still cool though.
This is the right track. Study of the heat energy will show another amazing energy that existed everywhere, but not harnessed by modern science. Well, the ones who discovered it just vanished or suicide.
Yet another wasted time, effort and resources. The most efficient and eternal electric energy generator, especially for uses like submarines, is the quantum tunnelling seebeck effect thermoelectric devices (no physical contact between two semiconductors with distance between them a few atoms wide) powered by the radioactive decay. Yoi have crazy efficiencies of 10to the fifth power microV/K! Beat that lol.
forget space & military applications: Stirling engines could give us a compact, quit energy source for home power: producing both electricity & heat, independent from the grid & power companies…we also can have cars that drive on tap water … but those technologies are suppressed by the Deep State to safeguard corporate interests…
Have a look to equium society…France
So you need to work on your google-fu. Hyliion has a working (production?), multi-fuel sterling engine that produces 20kw. End to end efficiency of 63%; and they have a development path to 800kw. This is a piston engine using He vs thermo-acoustic so maybe a bit shorter lived. That said, the efficiency is in the same range of a large natural gas/steam turbines (power plant size), which is a huge deal in a 20kw package.
TESLA came up with the acoustic engine.
Ages ago
I discovered sterling engine first time when i visited in Fach Hoch Schule im Kiel. It was international week of the school where i came from polytechical high school of Kotka. Later on I bought sterling engine model fro Conrad in Bremen. I have also booklet from Conrad how to build sterling engines. It is in german language, and it is little bit difficult for me to read, as i´m not so good in technical german language. But nowdays google translators could help me out. Now I have machinery to buld one.
It's not just Sweden and China subs using them. A major limitation of Stirling engines is that they work under rules; it's hard to get them to accelerate. However, that isn't an issue for submarines, as the engine runs at a constant, optimal speed to power a generator that charges the batteries. The batteries then handle the submarine's actual propulsion and speed changes.
They are also fantastic for steady-state applications, such as self-powered wood-stove fans and specialised air-conditioning/cooling systems. In fact, a popular use over 100 years ago was for personal cooling desk fans powered entirely by a small kerosene lamp.
The Chinese did not develop it. The Germans did it a couple of decades ago. Chinese just reinvented it recently.
what is deffrent between sterling engyn and accostic sterling engyn