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Solar concentrator internal explosion engine

 extreme amount of sunlight + water = explosions
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This would work like a regular combustion engine but instead of fuel combusting it would be a droplet of water that gets hit with a concentrated solar beam causing it to explode into a ball of superheated steam.

The sunlight would be channeled to the engine cylinders by a series of mirrors that alternate the beam between the different cylinders.

It would probably work as a two stroke engine. The cylinder sucks a drop of water, as the engine is mid stroke the solar beam hits the droplet, propelling the engine. The engine pushes the hot air out and sucks another drop in.

—flireferret, Jan 29 2025

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       I have a 12 ft. diameter satellite dish and 400 sq. ft. of reflective mylar waiting to be used.
The focal point if I combine these two things will vaporize diamond.
What are your cylinders comprised of?		   

       Sounds fun, but I think it would be less efficient than a solar heated steam driven turbine.
—Loris, Jan 29 2025
   

       [2fries] What will you use to cover the rest of the dish?
—minoradjustments, Jan 29 2025
   

       How do you stop the droplet vapourising as soon as it enters the cylinder (i.e. before the inlet valve shuts)? Presumably you need some ferocious cooling of the engine body.   

       Yet the concentrated sunlight hot enough to vapourise the droplet will also be strong enough to heat the cylinder lining.   

       Perhaps you need to paint the droplet black or something?   

       [minoradjustments] the concave side of the dish needs something like 120 sq ft of mylar to coat it Then I suppose since you have over 250 sq ft of mylar spare, you can continue by mylar-coating the back of the dish. After that there should still be about 150 sq ft of mylar left over. This gives you options; you could mylar-coat yourself, by making a full body suit out of mylar. I suppose you could also mylar-coat the support bracket and stand as well. It is hard to know how much mylar that would take, without knowing more about the nature of the supports.
—pocmloc, Jan 29 2025
   


 

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