An external combustion engine in which heat is applied through the wall of a chamber within which a gas is successively heated and cooled, alternately expanding and contracting to power a piston inside the chamber. Its advantages include: exceptional silence, lack of vibration, long life, high efficiency, extremely low emissions and adaptability to many different kinds of fuel. Its main drawbacks are the need for extremely effective seals, inflexible control systems, and cost.
A heat engine of the reciprocating (piston) where the working gas and a heat source are independent. The working gas is compressed in one region of the engine and transferred to another region where it is expanded. The expanded gas is then returned to the first region for recompression. The working gas thus moves back and forth in a closed cycle.
a closed-cycle, regenerative heat engine which uses an external combustion process, heat exchangers, pistons, a 'regenerator' and a gaseous working fluid contained within the engine to convert heat to mechanical work (motion)
a machine which converts heat energy into mechanical power
A device that uses small temperature differences in air to produce mechanical motion. This motion is then used to generate electricity. The air is heated by burning a fuel or from a solar heating system. Some of the waste heat from the engine can be captured by a heat recovery unit and used to heat air or water.
An external combustion engine that converts heat into useable mechanical energy (shaftwork) by the heating (expanding) and cooling (contracting) of a captive gas such as helium or hydrogen.
The Stirling engine is a closed-cycle piston heat engine. It operates through the use of an external heat source and heat sink of useful thermodynamic quality, each maintained within a limited temperature range, and having sufficient temperature difference between them. This engine is traditionally classified as an external combustion, despite the fact that heat may be supplied by non-combusting sources such as solar and nuclear energy.