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Ever noticed those pumps that pump crude oil are run by electric
Motors? We should take the irony a step further and power it
with
my nifty solar heated metallic expansion engine.
The bimetallic strips are just 10-foot tall versions of the ones
they have in thermostats. Running through the
center of the coil
is an
axle. There is a one-way, ratchet cuff interfacing the coil with
the axle (we will get to this,shortly).
There are actually 20 of these coils arranged 7 feet apart and
anchored in concrete with fiberglass insulation plates to prevent
heat transfer all the concrete. There are canopies above some of
the coils. As the sun moves over head, the alternating areas of
shade move causing some coils to expand while others contract.
The expanding force is isolated from the axle by way of the
aforementioned ratcheting cuff. The contracting force is
transferred to the axle by the ratchet cuff.
At the opening, when people ask you about why it's pumping oil,
tell them about how you could only get funding for the sculpture
because you said it was an oil pump motor.
Bimetallic coil expanding
http://upload.wikim...acts_to_lighter.gif
The kind in a thermostat [fishboner, Aug 08 2011]
For the ratchet action
http://upload.wikim...l-filter-wrench.jpg
It only grips the axle in one direction [fishboner, Aug 08 2011]
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Annotation:
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The canopies could move, powered by the axle. |
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Well, I'd like the movement of the sun and earth to handle
this. But you bring to mind the need for a third, huge coil
tuned to expand all day, and contract all night. |
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It should be possible to create a double ratchet mechanism that drives the shaft correctly on both expansion and contraction. |
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Oh a continuously ratcheting solution? Great.
However, In my experience the shaft needs some rest
between
cycles, but that's just me. |
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Seriously, your annotation with a flywheel gets us pretty
close to fully realized, IMHO. |
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A more elegant approach would be to reduce the number
of coils to 1, and let the night be the alternating shade.
This would make mechE's annotation a neccecity. |
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