Over the past month, in DLI Thermal Physics, Dr. Sullivan's crew built a Stirling Engine. They made it out of soda cans, CDs, balloons, pipe, and florist foam. On February 24th, after many failures and a great amount of frustration, it started to work, to many of the students surprise. They were amazed to see it working. We asked Dr. Sullivan and some of his students some questions:
Ollie: What inspired you to make this engine?
Dr. Sullivan: I included engine building in the curriculum for this class because heat engines utilize a large number of principles that we study in thermal physics. Many of the ideas introduced in this class were developed during the 19th century by people who were experimenting with building engines and gaining a deeper understanding of what energy and heat are.
Ollie: What could this engine be used to power?
Dr. Sullivan: These are a type of Stirling Engine. They are interesting in that they feature an exceptionally high thermal efficiency compared to other engine designs. However, that comes at a price. They obtain high efficiency by doing barely enough work to keep themselves running. As such, they will stall if we apply much of a load to them.
Ollie: How long did this take to create?
Dr. Sullivan: Students spent a large part of a month of class on building these engines.
Ollie: Was this your idea or did you see it somewhere?
Dr. Sullivan: Tin can Stirling engines have been around for a long time (decades). I first encountered them in college. We are working from a design in the book Quick and Easy Stirling Engine by Jim R. Larson
Ollie: Could this be made with everyday materials?
Dr. Sullivan: Indeed it is made of everyday materials. The engine is made from 2 soda cans, a cd, florists foam, a balloon, and pieces of wire.
Ollie: Do you have any other inventions up your sleeve?
Dr. Sullivan: I have a number of plans for things to build in classes in the future.
Ronnie asked Brandon Reid, who is seen in the video, about the experience.
Ronnie: How did you feel after you accomplished your goal?
Brandon: I was really happy. We have been working on our engines for weeks and it was really exciting to be the first group to get our to run.
Ronnie: Do you want to do anything else with this project? Try to improve the stability or the speed?
Brandon: Currently we are looking for ways to improve a leakage problem we encountered. In the future we will look for ways to make the engine faster and more aesthetically pleasing.
Ronnie: Have you done any other projects like this?
Brandon: I've built things in the past before, but this was pretty exciting because everything was built from scratch.
Here's the video:
See it in action!
