High-Power Solid-State Heat Engine Design

The most abundant energy source on Earth is low-temperature differential. Heat flowing from one reservoir, slightly hotter than the cold reservoir. There have been many solid-state heat engines designed to be put in that heat flow and produce mechanical work, but none successful in being commercially available to the public. I want to change that.

Here is my idea of the solid-state heat engine published under TAPR Open Hardware license:

https://youtu.be/qv-03HY3Pok

https://thaler.si/projects/nitinol-engine/

Subscribers to my Youtube channel get the model for free. Let me know you subscribed over e-mail, which is published in the video.

Subscribe here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpb...confirmation=1

Excellent explaination of how it will work and how it will go together. Any timetable on when you will have a working model?

Rick

Hopefully in a year. May 2020.

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Originally Posted by TilenThaler

Hopefully in a year. May 2020.

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I would expect that you could put together a rough proof of concept faster than that just to see if it is is worth proceeding. Maybe have a single wire and take some data. The key is to "fail fast" so you can correct your direction. Then try again.

Rick

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Thanks for the idea. I did some measurements already, perhaps I should really do some proof of concept. I'll do that, you're right. I have one wire, I could use that.

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Originally Posted by TilenThaler

Thanks for the idea. I did some measurements already, perhaps I should really do some proof of concept. I'll do that, you're right. I have one wire, I could use that.

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Tilen,

All of my crude proofs of concept teach me things. I have the amazing ability to violate all laws of physics when simulating machines in my head. Only by building a model am I brought back to reality.

Rick

Nice presentation. Not as complex as what is being proposed here but working on the same principle is the rubber band heat engine for which there are many examples on the Internet. One difference with rubber is that expands with cold and contracts with heat.

What I like about your design is it looks like it will work quite well with low grade heat (ie not hot enough to make dry steam). There are many sources of industrial low grade heat throughout the world that could be used to produce power. Looking forward to seeing a prototype. Have you gotten the patent applications in?

Some further thoughts: The time required for the heat transfer between the mediums is likely to be the limiting factor, so this will likely have to be a slow rotating machine. Not a deal breaker as it can be geared, pulleys, to a higher speed for a generator, or if large enough use a many pole generator to run at a low RPM. And isn't power related to heat transfer surface area not volume? still means lots of long wires is what will generate the most power.

Two things missing--the oal dimentions, and the output in Watts?

My 8th grade students built a device using a similar concept back in the late '80's. I got the idea from an article of the time, but I do not recall the magazine. As I recall the article was something like "Solar Muscle Engine".

It used Styrofoam coffee cups on each end, with strips of plastic cut from black plastic trash bags as the expanding/contracting elements. When placed in the sun, the black plastic would contract then expand as they were exposed to the sun, then shaded as the motor rotated. They were at first very skeptical at the prospect of this even working.

A couple of the motors did not work, due to careless workmanship. The best one was build by a group of girls who were meticulous in their construction.

The motors did not produce any usable power, except to power the imaginations of the students, and to help inspire a few to become engineers, etc.

I was able to find a similar article https://www.instructables.com/id/Solar-Thermal-Motor/

Yes, I remember that article, and one that my son made did work, albeit very slowly