I will be surprised if this hasn't been done before. Post the link, and I'll remove mine.
Instead of a standard cooling system in a Hybrid vehicle, route a stirling engine so that the heat of the IC engine drives a stirling engine. The stirling engine will cool the engine down by turning the heat into electricity, and provide some of the energy used by the electric motor...
For an even more crackpot idea, adjust the muffler so that it cools the sterling fluid using thermoacoustics...-- dbsousa, Aug 18 2005 'Sterling' hybrid car http://ideas.4brad....rchives/000094.html [ldischler, Aug 18 2005] fuel cell vehicle http://www.envbike.com/off-subject, but I can't get over this supercool project 'n' sweet website [bpilot, Aug 19 2005] Begs the question, "Why don't mufflers have fins?"-- reensure, Aug 18 2005 Hmm. Can a sterling motor reduce heat? I know there's a law that says that absorbed heat is heat released (sorry for the maybe poor translation) but in order to cool the engine you would have to create a coolant. Usually it is achieved by letting air run over the engine block.
The sterling engine could trigger a fan, but doing so it would also create energy (friction, movement, thus heat) so the gain would be as much ass the loss.
But I could be wrong, because I have no idea what a Hybrid vehicle is.
On a more pedant note: sp.: A hybrid vehicle. When advancing a vowel the 'n' is not appropriate.-- Susan, Aug 18 2005 That was a reviso. (as opposed to a typo, a reviso is a spelling or grammar mistake that occurs when your original sentence made sense, but the revision created an error that you failed to notice.) The original phrase was "an ICE vehicle".
And the Sterling engine fluid is the coolant. A Sterling engine needs a hot side and a cool side, much like a coolant system in your car...-- dbsousa, Aug 18 2005 Funny! I am going to remember that: reviso. And my anno should say a 'pronounced vowel' but never mind that.
Annyway, I still don't see how the sterling engine will reduce or cool the engine. Please elaborate.-- Susan, Aug 18 2005 A sterling engine will absorb and remove some heat, but not nearly as much as, say, a radiator. While using a stirling engine to generate extra power from your already hot engine is a sound concept, you will still need a dedicated cooling system for the "cool" side of the engine, otherwise both sides of the engine will heat up in short order and the engine will stop working.
You still need a radiator, just attached to a different part of the car. Still, bun. Your explanation of the application is lacking, but requires only minor adjustment to be a good idea.
Incidentally [Reensure], mufflers don't have fins because A. car manufacturers are cheapskates, and B. the performance gains would be negligible. While decreasing the exhaust temperature as it left the engine would decrease pressure and a create a slight "suction" effect, which can be good, the extra weight would probably outweigh any performance gains, especially since a typical exhaust system cools the exhaust a fair amount anyway. If you really wanted to decrease the pressure, a simple and lighter method would be to gradually increase pipe diameter (baked, BTW).-- 5th Earth, Aug 18 2005 The heat differential that you're trying to harvest is likely not enough to outweigh the extra weight (& thus efficiency loss) of the hardware you'd need to do the harvesting.
In spite of that, I'm withholding any fishbone, because some engineers might optimize this to where it's doable. I just don't see it. Also, I think I'm out of fishbones, as I've done it too often lately, and need to reassess whether I have an attitude problem lately.-- sophocles, Aug 18 2005 This would work, although it might be a little heavier; no more than 50 lbs. or so. Just make a round radiator, put the Stirling engine's cylinder up against it, and use it to drive the alternator. Or you could use a cooling system to make steam and drive a steam engine.-- discontinuuity, Aug 19 2005 [pa've] (sorry sp.), see link for a ground-based fuel cell vehicle.-- bpilot, Aug 19 2005 Indeed, [Pa`ve], where ya been? We've moved on since the tractor experiments of forty-odd years ago.-- david_scothern, Aug 19 2005 Rather than try to run the stirling engine via the waste heat of the ICE cooling system, try instead heating the stirling's hot side with the ICE exhaust - exhaust gas temperatures will be considerably higher than the temperature of the cooling system.-- elhigh, Aug 19 2005 Fixed the spelling. I knew better but in my fever to get it on the page, I forgot. Say, that gives me an idea...-- dbsousa, Aug 19 2005 There was a lot of research done on this 15 years ago. The SAE published papers suggested that it would be necessary to switch from conventional ICE to turbine engines. This would make a hot enough engine exhaust to justify the additional weight of the stirling engine to recover power from waste heat. Part of this is offset from the turbine engine having a better hp/weight ratio than ICE. Kind of dissappointing really, it would be pretty cool to have a 1200 hp engine in a car. And people would get out of your way when it sounds like a 747 taking off right behind them!-- MrExergy, Jun 17 2017 random, halfbakery