Belgium 1

Thibaut Collignon (17)

City/Region: Embourg, Wallonie E-mail: sirling1@caramail.com

Damien Leonard (18)

City/Region: Embourg, Wallonie E-mail: sirling1@caramail.com Hobbies: Astronomy, travels, sports Career: Civil engineer School: Secondary school of Sartay

The Stirling Engine: When the Future Meets the Past

The main aim of Damien and Thibaut was to explain the way a Stirling engine works, as well as to build one on their own. They claim that anyone looking for an ecological, simple and economical engine will find it in the design of the Scottish clergyman, Robert Stirling. In his engine patented in 1816, air was heated by external combustion through a heat exchanger and then was displaced, compressed and expanded by two pistons. The successful Stirling engine became the first early high-pressure steam boiler that did not explode and continued to be used to pump water on farms and to generate electricity in small communities right up to the 1920's. It was discontinued to the high cost of the device. Now a better knowledge of physics and especially of thermodynamics, has today given the Stirling engine a chance to be used by high-tech industries as well as space, submarine and power plant industries. It uses an external hot source and therefore as Damien and Thibaut point out there are no limits as to the different kinds of fuel sources that it may utilize.