All ceramic engine, 38% efficiency
All ceramic engine, 38% efficiency
(OP)
I am seeking design engineering assistance and any other to build this design.
Burn = 1,000+ C
Exhaust + <100C
Heat losses minimal.
Burn = 1,000+ C
Exhaust + <100C
Heat losses minimal.





RE: All ceramic engine, 38% efficiency
The liners were so hard they had to be lapped with a diamond dust impregnated lapping bar.
I think it was an engineering exercise as it apparently never made it to production.
Good Luck!
Franz
RE: All ceramic engine, 38% efficiency
I call the design the Sterling External Combustion Positive Displacement Steam Turbine. A mouth full.
On a common shaft are mounted a series of vane type air motors of ceramic. One provides charging air for the system. The next is linked by a sram jet burner with a very lean burn. This will progress in stages to develope a very hot compressed oxygen containing fluid stream which then goes into another series, but this time instead of fuel water in injected to produce the "work".
Basicaly the front end is a high efficiency burner and the back is a low speed positive displacement steam turbine. Hence the low exhaust temp. The srams act as flash boilers with little residual energy. The best we have is the steam cycle to produce work from a fuel. The drawback is the boiler, as it is basically a bomb. Here I am useing the fluid velocity to have a boiler and no bomb.
I think it is a design that you say has one moving part.
This is simplicity itself and I want to build it. If you think that I have missed something and this will not work, please put me out of my misery trying to build it. If you can point me to any grants or would like involvment I welcome any input.
RDS
RE: All ceramic engine, 38% efficiency
Refer to the article about the commercially available Stirling in October 2001 Power Engineering. If you look at the cutaway drawing, you will notice a sophisticated-looking recuperator to reclaim the rejected heat which is then used to preheat the combustion air to improve engine efficiency. What the photo doesn’t reveal is the high temperature materials required for such high efficiency. Remember ceramics do't transfer heat as well as metals. Go to the manufacturer’s web site for more info. They don’t use steam augmentation since the condensed (or makeup) water would have to be pumped up to the "boiler drum" pressure, and this would be another relatively complex subsystem to and otherwise simple flow schematic.