NASA Stirling Converter Demonstration

StirlingBuilder... - This video was sent to me by Preston Dyches who does education and public outreach for NASA's Radioisotope Power Systems (RPS) program. Their website is rps.nasa.gov. NASA and the Department of Energy are developing an Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator (ASRG) as the next generation power system for exploring extreme environments in the solar system. The RPS program is managed at NASA's Glenn Research Center (GRC) in Cleveland, OH, where work has been ongoing for at least a decade to develop the Advanced Stirling Converter (ASC) which is at the heart of the ASRG.

[@GordonGarvey]

Robert sterling would be proud to see his creation still competing with modern technology.

[@1islam1]

🔴 What Is Islam? ⚠️ 🔴 Islam is not just another religion. 🔵 It is the same message preached by Moses, Jesus and Abraham. 🔴 Islam literally means ‘submission to God’ and it teaches us to have a direct relationship with God. 🔵 It reminds us that since God created us, no one should be worshipped except God alone. 🔴 It also teaches that God is nothing like a human being or like anything that we can imagine. 🌍 The concept of God is summarized in the Quran as: 📖 { “Say, He is God, the One. God, the Absolute. He does not give birth, nor was He born, and there is nothing like Him.”} (Quran 112:1-4)[4] 📚 🔴 Becoming a Muslim is not turning your back to Jesus. 🔵 Rather it’s going back to the original teachings of Jesus and obeying him.

[@ahmdabdallah5811]

God has said in the Quran: { O mankind, worship your Lord, who created you and those before you, that you may become righteous - ( 2:21 ) [He] who made for you the earth a bed [spread out] and the sky a ceiling and sent down from the sky, rain and brought forth thereby fruits as provision for you. So do not attribute to Allah equals while you know [that there is nothing similar to Him]. ( 2:22 ) And if you are in doubt about what We have sent down upon Our Servant [Muhammad], then produce a surah the like thereof and call upon your witnesses other than Allah, if you should be truthful. ( 2:23 ) But if you do not - and you will never be able to - then fear the Fire, whose fuel is men and stones, prepared for the disbelievers.( 2:24 ) And give good tidings to those who believe and do righteous deeds that they will have gardens [in Paradise] beneath which rivers flow. Whenever they are provided with a provision of fruit therefrom, they will say, "This is what we were provided with before." And it is given to them in likeness. And they will have therein purified spouses, and they will abide therein eternally. ( 2:25 ) Quran

[@pomponi0]

Imagine what the person who chipped the first flint into a tool would think!

[@ianchan2624]

do u mean the gandalf engine???

[@mblair9001]

AHA, finally found a Stirling engine which features a magnetic piston traveling back and forth through a coil. That same arrangement could be used to start the engine by pulsing power through the coil to start the piston moving. Too bad it was cancelled... It had a higher potential efficiency compared to Peltiers but it is hard to argue against a system with no moving parts, especially when you consider that you cannot service it once launched.... Thanks for sharing!

[@cjones4286]

could you share the link for the linear Stirling engine?

[@mblair9001]

C Jones Sure, it's the one shown above! :P

[@cjones4286]

Can you buy a linear one?

[@mblair9001]

I don't think so, this was the first video I was able to find which matched what I was thinking of - basically that the piston in the magnet in a linear generator. Too bad NASA didn't follow through on this.

[@cjones4286]

Bloody energy companies making them put it to bed through back door pay offs probably. Thanks michael.

[@markjmaxwell9819]

Many different stirling engine designs are still in use including the shown free piston design. The engine design above was tested for 15 years with reliable maintenance free operation over that period of time. Solar powered Stirlings are a relatively new use for the engine. A very smart Scottish man invented this engine over a century ago. They are used in submarines and will probably be used for power generation on nuclear thermal powered manned spacecraft with the heat from the core used. With climate change coming to the fore many more applications are on the horizon including one of my new power plant designs. The Chinese have just successfully tested a power generating space based version of a free piston sterling engine. 😎👍

[@oilprooilfield2148]

The Powergen manages 30% efficiency just as a generator, but when the up to 50 deg C glycol heat is recovered and used for glycol heat tracing 70-95% is possible.

[@ManualdoMotorStirling]

Very good this engine! the advantage of this engine is easier to make the seals, no gas leaks. I liked this animation made ​​me want to build one similar. Leandro.

[@laionnogueira6082]

Manual do Motor Stirling - Leandro Wagner do you make?

[@heliopathsolartechnologies2345]

We are also Intrested in making of these. Please mail us If you are working on this. We can give inputs to each other. My mail Id- [e-mail]

[@buzz-es]

Me too, the plans and specs should be public (tax payers)......I'm down

[@1islam1]

🔴 What Is Islam? ⚠️ 🔴 Islam is not just another religion. 🔵 It is the same message preached by Moses, Jesus and Abraham. 🔴 Islam literally means ‘submission to God’ and it teaches us to have a direct relationship with God. 🔵 It reminds us that since God created us, no one should be worshipped except God alone. 🔴 It also teaches that God is nothing like a human being or like anything that we can imagine. 🌍 The concept of God is summarized in the Quran as: 📖 { “Say, He is God, the One. God, the Absolute. He does not give birth, nor was He born, and there is nothing like Him.”} (Quran 112:1-4)[4] 📚 🔴 Becoming a Muslim is not turning your back to Jesus. 🔵 Rather it’s going back to the original teachings of Jesus and obeying him.

[@pedrowhack-a-mole6786]

I always liked this design. It probably has at least 1000 degrees between the hot and the cold sides when used in space.

[@oilprooilfield2148]

I'm not sure, but we achieve high 400C to low 600C head temps on earth with ambient temps as low as -40C, all day long. The PowerGen is designed to put out consistent power in ambient temperatures as high as 50C, and was tested in the deserts of the world to prove it.

[@wolfgangouille]

Yeah but in space the cold end can not dissipate it's energy efficiently, except through IR radiation.

[@movax20h]

Could be interesting in solar powered engines. Integration of repricocating generator is a nice trick here too.

[@jonathanmillner]

If a person is on a planet like Mars, and the soil temperature 12 feet down is 10C, this is a great engine to stick in the ground and have the top sitting out on the surface where it may be -40C. The greater the temperature difference between the soil and the atmosphere, the more energy it can produce. On Earth, a place like the arctic or possibly the middle east would likely produce the most energy. Most other places in the universe make the extremes of those places look like nothing... I don't understand why something like this isn't a commercially made product. It's cheap to manufacture, efficient, can produce quite a bit of energy, produces zero carbon, and the greater the temperature fluctuations, the more energy is produced. I live in Minnesota. It's a very continental climate and the soil is 55F here roughly. The temperature outside is very rarely ever 55F. It's bouncing with a high degree of day to night variation as well as the general weather extremes we see here, which on a bad winter can dip to like -40F and on a hot summer can get up to like... 105-110F. These types of engines would be good for a guy like me to power my house or business or whatever... In the middle of winter when it is -30F outside, these engines would be producing tons of power at exactly the time when it is most needed. Reverse is also true in the summer when it's super hot and everyone is running their AC.

[@JimSailing]

I have had similar thoughts about utilizing the temperature differences in bodies of water, especially in summer.

[@jonathanmillner]

@@JimSailing It'd be strange to have a pool with a black bottom and a pool with a completely white or reflective bottom with a stirling engine in a huge cylindrical pipe between the two powering your house. I suppose in theory it's possible. You could maybe even make something like that 6' in diameter. I think the main issue on this is... if there is only a 10 degree temperature difference between the two bodies of water, that might produce only 40watts/hr. So... about 1kw/day. Is that worth $.15 every day? Probably easier to place it vertically in a pool of water like a buoy and have reflective mirrors get the top 150F+ all the time, so between the water at say... 75F and the top, there is a 75F temperature differential, then a similar system instead of putting out 1kw in a day could may churn out 7-8kw. That's an amount that'd power a few houses needs everyday... Someone should just make a stirling engine you stick in your pool with mirrors on top. That's not even very difficult...

[@Jeffrey314159]

1:10 Carnot Effieciency? Isn't it pronounced Kar-noh?

[@buzz-es]

Tomato Tomotto

[@JohnSmith-eo5sp]

Tomatoe, Tomattoe?

[@klausbrinck2137]

it´s french, you´re right it´s Karno or karnoh... French don´t pronounce the last consonant of the world, if the letter before it is a vocal.

[@nc3826]

thanks for that pedantism

[@CUBETechie]

Use an hexbar out of brass now come the important thing when you drill a big pocket hole in the middle be careful and collect the chips after this drill on the side 3 holes slightly bigger than the cylinder fill this hexagonal “can“ with the chips put the cylinder inside fill the rest of the collected chips. Concentrate the sunlight on it or other heat source then run the Stirling engines.

[@poppoppop3768]

Huh?

[@ccsalud40]

Very Good! I like this.

[@the_natrix9959]

I have not found a piston in nature. Whirlwind bound, the pressured sound; not a piston in the sky, yet my home is flying high!

[@AsloAso]

The only problem with linear engines are the mass vibrations they create. Without a counter balancer or harmonic balancer this linear Stirling motor going to vibrate the heck out of whatever structure it's attracted to.

[@DanielMiller-fy5ip]

The ASRG they propose using incorporates two opposing pistons. Because these are linear generators with speed and pressure controllers, the opposing motion of one can be used to counterbalance the vibrations of the other.

[@AtlasReburdened]

Linear reciprocating mass is nothing like a reaction wheel in its affect on an object in free fall.

[@laihela]

@@bjl1000 You should've been paying more attention during physics class.

[@paulsharman3942]

Don't forget it has a strong magnet inside, would it plot its own course in space or would it clean the debris.

[@Ezio-Auditore94]

@@paulsharman3942 Not a chance

[@frbe0101]

What is not pointed out is the flexer at the bottom, skepticism that that part can flex for decades without breaking has been a hindrance in getting these in space.

[@ungerspiltz4586]

I believe that part is called a 'planar spring'

[@awatt]

NASA has been running one continuously for decades

[@alwayscensored6871]

Could CO2 be used instead of helium?

[@JimSailing]

Gavin McIntosh CO2 is heavier than air and would not work as well. Lighter gasses work better because they change more in volume as temperature changes.

[@thermionicemission6355]

@@JimSailing Not to mention lower thermal mass..

[@whatthefunction9140]

The only part I dint understand is the "natural resonance?" seems like a rhombic drive would be fine.

[@rogue277]

The free-piston arrangement here allows the engineers to design a machine without any wear mechanisms. The rhombic arrangement needs bearings for crankshaft and rods, which wouldn't last very long. The free-piston arrangement reduces the machine to a spring-mass-damper arrangement on the piston. So to oscillate it needs to run near its natural frequency.

[@oilprooilfield2148]

@@rogue277 Correct. They use "flexure springs in the PowerGen" (much like the tiny discs inside 45 rpm records, if you remember those?) They're rated for billions of cycles. The cycle is approximately 60 Hz, and the commercial versions put out 300VAC, which is then converted to 12/24 DC or 120/240VAC, through 2 legs, each of which is limited to 23.5 A.

[@nicknorris2826]

neat to see, I make a bunch of parts for these

[@Toddg1234Mr]

Where do I get the parts from.

Send me a drawing for power piston and displacer. Can't figure out how gas bearings work in those.

[@StirlingBuilder]

The power output is higher.

[@AtlasReburdened]

Than?

[@motiurrohaman9690]

Nice💖💖💖

[@waynewilliamson4212]

awesome...did not know they could approach 55 percent efficiency...I thought the max was in the 10 percent range....

[@BobClemintime]

+Wayne Williamson It is 55% of the Carnot efficiency, which is the theoretical maximum efficiency for a heat engine. I believe the efficiency in terms of output energy/input energy is closer to 38% (which is actually still quite high).

[@Jeffrey314159]

Wayne Williamson It could be using an insulating jacket to eliminate Chimney Losses

[@williambrennan104]

But in deep space, isn't the Carnot efficiency almost 1 because T_c is 3 K?

[@whatsup7202]

William Brennan There's a constant source of heat... the radioactive material used to fuel standard RTG's.

[@bobhumplick4213]

the best gasoline engines can get maybe 20-30% i think. maybe less. maybe another stirling engine on the exhaust would get the effiecency up lol. daisy chain them for better effiecncy.

[@redwarcube]

How hot are we looking at for the top of this 50'c 100'c ?

[@oilprooilfield2148]

the PowerGen gas fired versions run at temperatures in the high 400 to low 500 deg C range typically. As I understand the engine is similar the temperatures at the head with a nuclear heating source may be higher, but not a lot. I'll get back and elaborate if I learn more.

[@bjl1000]

How do they start this engine? with a battery and linear motor?

[@ytams1]

Possibly. However if you have two convertors arranged to take it in turns so that when one goes up the other is forced down causing the pair to start each other.

[@oilprooilfield2148]

Stirling engines also run in reverse, i.e. if you put in heat and have a linear alternator on the other end, you make electricity. Likewise, if you put in electricity you make cold on the other end. This is why Qnergy's sister Co. Ricor makes most of NATO's cryogenic coolers for lasers and night vision optics etc. So, to answer your question, on the PowerGen system, kzbin.info/www/bejne/bXaUZ5uhrL1po7s, we simply send an electric pulse into the linear alternator, which sets off the pulsation of the primary Stirling engine piston and gets it started. It's really neat as it makes a distinctive "ping" and then starts buzzing at a quiet ~60Hz to make electricity.

[@andreashubner5802]

wieviel Volt und watt

[@steveforbin911]

Any info regarding kw-hr/cu inch displacement? dimensions available? Heat regenerator material? Some talk of using hydrogen, but claims of explosion and counter claims. My understanding is no Oxygen in outer space. Seems like this is illogical.

[@samuelmendoza9356]

The Stirling comes with gas inside and hermetically sealed like the compressor of fridge and air conditioners. Also, the gas being used here is Helium.

[@michaeljoefox]

What? I can’t hear you.

[@DoNotPushHere]

Why do satellites use stirlings instead of peltier cells? are stirlings still above the all-mighty electronics? =) Thank you!

[@TrumpSupremacist]

Fun fact - Jim used an antique potato as a microphone when he made this video.

[@oilprooilfield2148]

A variant of the Stirling engine, also built for NASA supplier Qnergy has now logged well over 110,000 maintenance-free hours. The commercial version is now available from OilPro in Calgary, Alberta, in the form of the Powergen, which incorporates a 1200 or 5.65kW generator. This product is already in the commercial stages with hundreds of units in use in the oil and gas and pipeline business, but also communications, rail and micro CHP. kzbin.info/www/bejne/bXaUZ5uhrL1po7s shows more about these, or visit www.oilpro.ca. Happy to share more info with anyone interested in learning more. This is a fascinating and incredibly durable product which runs on any combustible gas from biogas to propane to natural gas. This comment is not meant as a business solicitation, but merely to show Stirling engine fans that these already exist and are successful commercially. Ergo no link to our website.

[@weerobot]

Nasa how to make the Simple Complicated...

[@Jupiter-rs4zl]

If its working in space where there is no oxygen, hydrogen is better because of better thermal conductivity

[@frogstamper]

Sadly this program has now been cancelled due to rising costs.

[@ToeCutter454]

yea, rising cost of gasoline/diesel.... cant make money off of something like this as easily as you can fuel...

[@ComandanteJ]

+Quantum Uncertainty Workshop Yeah, because space proves have diesel engines to generate electricity, right? ¬¬ .Stirling engines have been tested in nuclear reactors and solar concentrators, but the complication of the mechanism makes it prone to failure, and heating up water and then collecting that energy with turbines (wich have no moving parts except for the rotor and some bearings), is much cheaper, more reliable, and in most cases, at least as efficient.

[@ToeCutter454]

ComandanteJ it's only a matter of time before someone manages to refine the engine through new metals and ceramics in its construction to make something that is as functional as our "newer" systems without fail. most sterling engines and tests were done ahead of their time before we had all this technology that brought us more research into advanced materials. i understand there's issues and complications with anything.

[@Muonium1]

car-not? lol. car-no!

[@SouthernHerdsman]

If every household has one of these, there won't be energy demand from the grid.

[@julmaj1479]

So is the former president Obama now speaking on stirling education videos?

[@dtiydr]

Why is helium used and not any other gases?

[@fryncyaryorvjink2140]

Helium is a smaller particle than normal air, and lighter, the engine can run much faster. Look up stirling engine with helium it gives you a demonstration.

[@dtiydr]

Nabre Labre It was almost 1 year I wrote that. Air work as well but in cryocoolers it would be best to use helium not only since its very light as you say but it also have a very low freezing point actually the lowest which means that you could as low. Hydrogen would work very good as well but helium is the best, problem is only that its not a renewable source.

[@Jeffrey314159]

+Nabre Labre Why not Hydrogen ? It is cheaper and lighter than Helium, but Hydrogen is flammable. Helium maybe lower desinsity since it is a monoatomic molecule, and it doesn't cohere or adhere to anything - so lower viscosity

[@Jeffrey314159]

Helium is a low density gas, has no viscosity at all, and it is chemically inert. Hydrogen is lighter and cheaper but flammable

[@fryncyaryorvjink2140]

+Jeffrey314159 yea probably too risky to use hydrogen as a leak could release flammable gas into the spaceship

[@HoneyBerighthere-Saysarath]

You still need oxygen for this medicine to work.

[@StirlingBuilder]

No oxygen required. The engine contains its own supply of working fluid and is recycled.

[@jerrygarroutte2770]

No comment

[@ronaldbrown5991]

State of the art 1887 🤨👎

[@ripntear8487]

It depends on application. What is outdated today might be ideal solution tomorrow someplace far far away perhaps.

[@justtinkering6713]

So are electric cars

[@baklazanivanovich7566]

it will not work :)

[@oilprooilfield2148]

Several customers will prove you wrong sir. These units are making power commercially for several years already. kzbin.info/www/bejne/bXaUZ5uhrL1po7s