Liquid piston heat engine

Abstract

This heat engine, uses a Stirling cycle design, wherein a cold exchanger section of a cylinder and a hot exchanger section of the same cylinder are attached to an axis in an off-center positioned. The axis is preferably capable of rotation, but in some embodiments may be fixed. When a rotatable axis is used, a liquid acting as a piston moves within a portion of the cylinder against centrifugal force, and is driven by a working gas which is used in the same cylinder. By oscillating the liquid in the cylinder outwardly in the cylinder during a downward, or 'power', stroke and inwardly in the cylinder during an upward, or 'drag', stroke the center of mass of the liquid in the cylinder provides a greater moment of force during the downward power stroke than during the upward drag stroke. When used with a rotating axis and subjected to heating at a hot exchanger section and to cooling at a cold exchanger section at selected times it produces continuous power producing rotary motion about the axis. The cold exchanger section and the hot exchanger section of the cylinder may be cooled and heated using waste water solar energy, or any other type of exterior cooling and heating source. The engine may include both a top and bottom cylinder on the same axis, or multiple cylinder arrays, and it may also include a plurality of cylinder arrays spaced around and about the same axis.