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Description: | DES MANU Unsigned. circa 1970 The workshop of the Dept .of Natural Philosophy (now the Dept. of Physics and Astronomy). Sotland This model air engine was built c.1970 by the workshop of the Natural Philosophy Department at Glasgow University.
It is closely based on the design of a model air engine presented to Glasgow University in 1827 by its inventor, the Rev. Robert Stirling. Stirling, the parish minister at Galston in Ayrshire, patented this 'heat economiser' in 1816.
The engine runs by using a recurrent cycle of the same trapped air, flowing repeatedly through a connected displacer cylinder (containing a 'displacer' plunger) and power piston, with momentum provided by the turn of a flywheel. Air in the large displacer cylinder is heated, rises up past the plunger and flows through a connecting pipe to the piston, causing it to rise and the flywheel to turn. The displacer (plunger) is moved downwards, forcing air into the top of its cylinder. This air cools, due to the presence of a water-filled cooling jacket, situated at the top of the cylinder. The continued momentum of the flywheel causes all the air to move to the top of the cylinder, where it quickly cools. The air is then forced downwards again into the heated part of the cylinder when the piston moves down, pulling the plunger upwards. The air, now in the heated bottom part of the cylinder, expands and increases pressure in the confined displacer cylinder space until it moves past the plunger, through the connector, and into the piston compartment causing the cycle to repeat.
The engine is almost totally silent in operation, and can potentially be fuelled with any heat source. Because the combustion of fuel is external to the machine this process can be carried out in an efficient manner. Due to the abundance of coal in the 19th century and Stirling's obsession with the economic use of fuel, the air engine was used in the Scottish mining industry as a water pump and in churches as an air pump for organs.
There are many modern applications for the air engine, including the powering of orbiting satellites and driving environmentally friendly power sources. | License: | http://www.hmag.gla.ac.uk/spirit/rights/ | Publisher: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Rights holder: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Subjects: | SCIENTIFIC COLLECTION : | Source: | Hunterian Museum | Creator: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Identifier: | http://www.huntsearch.gla.ac.uk/cgi-bin/... | Language: | en-GB | Go to resource |
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