Hot Air Engine
A hot air engine (historically called an air engine or caloric engine) is any heat engine that uses the expansion and contraction of air under the influence of a temperature change to convert thermal energy into mechanical work. These engines may be based on a number of thermodynamic cycles encompassing both open cycle devices such as those of Sir George Cayley and John Ericsson and the closed cycle engine of Robert Stirling. Hot air engines are distinct from the better known internal combustion based engine and steam engine.
In a typical implementation, air is repeatedly heated and cooled in a cylinder and the resulting expansion and contraction is used to move a piston and produce useful mechanical work.
Read more about Hot Air Engine: Definition, History, Thermodynamic Cycles
Famous quotes containing the words hot, air and/or engine:
“We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it—and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again—and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“[Allegory] should ... be very sparingly practised, lest, whilst the writer plays with his own fancies and diverts himself by cutting the air with his wide spread wings, he should soar out of view of his readers, leaving them in confusion and perplexity to explore his viewless track.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)
“There is a small steam engine in his brain which not only sets the cerebral mass in motion, but keeps the owner in hot water.”
—Unknown. New York Weekly Mirror (July 5, 1845)