One of the basic truths learned in college thermodynamics courses is that no heat-activated cycle can be devised that is more efficient than a Carnot cycle operating between the same temperature ...

There’s more than one way to make good use of the Stirling cycle. Just ask the engineers at Infinia, Kennewick, Wash. They use it in both their PowerDish, a device already on the market that turns ...

Over on his YouTube channel [Tom Stanton] shows us how to build a Stirling Engine for a bike. A Stirling Engine is a heat engine, powered by the expansion and contraction of a working fluid (such as ...

In the early years of the nineteenth century, steam engines were at work in a variety of practical uses. However, they were still imperfect in many ways. One particular problem were the boilers, that ...

I first heard about Stirling engines at probably about the same time most people in the general public heard of them, i.e. during the frenzy of speculation regarding the exact nature of inventor Dean ...

Just how small can you make an engine? Two researchers from the University of Stuttgart and the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Valentin Blickle and Clemens Bechinger, successfully ...

If you enjoyed this article, I’d like to ask for your support. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in ...