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My capstone project is the magnum opus of my high school career. The first goal of this project was to build a functional 200cc Stirling engine. The end goal of this project is to optimize the Stirling engine to produce at least 75 watts of power at the shaft and to implement it for use in a boat, generator or water pump.
Pictured above: The most recent version of the engine. Below is my original design. Note the vast differences between the two engines. The only feature I kept was the alpha configuration.
Shown above is the final design of the engine. It is a 200cc Two-Cylinder Alpha type atmospheric Stirling engine with cranks on either end of the crankshaft. The engine is fired with propane and uses water cooling.
20221025_140959.mp4Boring out the inside of the cylinders. This had to be done very slowly and carefully because the cylinder is sticking out of the chuck quite a lot.
20230719_205119.mp4Video of the engine running.
In the video the engine is shown running for about 40 seconds. At the time this video was taken, the regenerator had not been installed yet. The engine produced about 4 watts of power at 350 RPM. After some minor changes and installation of the regenerator, the engine makes about 10 watts at 500rpm.
One sound that you can hear in the video is a rhythmic popping noise which is from the "snifter" valve installed on the engine. It functions by taking air into the engine from outside when the engine is below atmospheric pressure in the cooling stage of the engine's cycle. This causes the pressure in the engine to be higher during the expansion stroke and increases engine power overall.
To improve the amount of power the engine produces, I am focusing on increasing the temperature achieved in the hot end. I am going to do this by adding insulation to the hot end and changing to a hotter burner.
My goal application for this engine is to use it as a motor for a small lake boat. Currently, this cannot happen because the power output is too low. If it cannot be made into a boat motor even after improving the power output to the best of my ability, then it will have to power something else.
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