Quote Originally Posted by Kiwi
jan
They don't have to be simple.
A NZ company is making them for generating electicity.
http://www.whispergen.com/
Also one of the Scandinavian countries are using them to drive submarines. (I believe they are very hard to detect with sound equipment.)
They sure don't need to be simple. Our Swedish navy use them in their submarines and those engines are very complex, but the original sterling engine is very simple as is e.g. the more complex "kalorik" engine by John Ericsson" (the guy with the propeller an who also build the "Monitor". I also once found an hot air engine in an American history book. The engine was put to the market i guess around year 1850 with the advertised by Cammeyer and Sayer as "An engine simpler than a stove" or something like that. A simple device it was and it was a "Stirling clone". You can make them complex if you want. I like nice engineering, but I also admire simplicity. For a beginer it would be more simple to start with a "simple" Stiling than an IC engine.
/jan