On 5/6/2010 11:41 PM, Steve wrote:

I understand the heating part of it, but what provides the cooling?
Increasing pressure should just heat things up further (if I remember
how Superman turned coal into diamonds), right?

The cold head is air cooled - so heat is dissipated by convection and
radiation.

The temperature, pressure, and volume behavior is described at "Modeling
fluidyne behavior"; and pressure is relieved by displacing water
(increasing the volume occupied by the air).

BTW, that parabolic mirror is impressive!

Thanks - it works fairly well. The next one will have the mirror turned
90° so that the trough will be ~88" wide and only 48" long - which will
allow using the 48" focal tube as the hot head of the engine and should
boost the input temperature to somewhere around 1100°F.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/