Stirling engines in production vehicles?

[Conceptual]

http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2009 ... -vehicles/


Stirling engines in production vehicles?

Why was this not pushed harder?

[tomislavp4]

"Ford, GM, and American Motors Corp. spent millions of dollars developing Stirling engines for cars, back in the 1970's. Ford even built a Stirling that could drive away from the curb (with relatively low power) twenty seconds after you turned the start key! Many prototypes were built and tested. Then oil prices came down in the 1980's, and people started to buy bigger cars. Suddenly there was no compelling reason to build an engine that was substantially more efficient than internal combustion engines, but wouldn't start instantly." -from the FAQ at http://www.stirlingengine.com/

You can help efficiency by placing them in other places too... like for example the exhaust and the cooling system, you don´t have to use them as the primary engine... I certanly would like to see them around more often

[Conceptual]

I would just like to see this revisited with modern technology...

[Flummo]

The Stirling is a low power engine compared to it's size, and it reacts slowly to changes in power - stepping on the pedal and waiting 10-20 seconds before the car reacts would be bad, but even worse if the car continues on full power after you take the foot off the pedal! Sure, some problems can probably be ironed out with time and money, but I think the Stirling engine would work best for powering a generator in a hybrid car.

[Conceptual]

The Stirling is a low power engine compared to it's size, and it reacts slowly to changes in power - stepping on the pedal and waiting 10-20 seconds before the car reacts would be bad, but even worse if the car continues on full power after you take the foot off the pedal! Sure, some problems can probably be ironed out with time and money, but I think the Stirling engine would work best for powering a generator in a hybrid car.

that would be in line with "revisiting it with modern technology"...

[se7725]

I think it is very possible that the Stirling engine could make a come back. Although its not really usable as a direct power source to turn the driving wheels its attributes would lend itself to being a suitable hybrid power source. An example would be something similar the the volt or Fisker concepts that use their engines only to generate electricity. That way it could run for a long period at peek efficiency as the electricity being generated could be diverted between the motor diving the wheels and recharging the battery.

[Flummo]

The swedish Gotland class submarines actually uses stirling engines, I believe they are used to power generators but I am not sure and don't have time to look into it right now.

And by the way, the US navy borrowed one sub for navy exercises, it turnes out it is so silent not even they can detect it. I'm sure that has made a couple of americans nervous, don't you think? (Yes, I'm swedish, in case you hadn't guessed already.)

[tomislavp4]

Yeah, just find the wiki article about them, it´s all there. They are the only subs in the world (non nuclear) that can stay underwater for 2 weeks The engines they use were developed in the mid 80´s if I remember corectly....

The low power to weight ratio is the main problem, be it in hybrid or non hybrid applications. If you take the Volt for example, the stirling would be around 30% bigger than the 4 cyl it uses, offcourse it woulld weigh more too. Then you´ll need bigger heat exchanger that would increase the drag.....we´ll never know untill somebody dares to build such thing but that´s my guess