Topic: external combustion steam engine

[BlindJoe]

  http://www.cyclonepower.com/works.html

[Raul CB750K1]

I have a friend who owns an engineering firm, who are doing some research on the matter.

There seems to be some future on it, using the Sun to produce heat, and the engine to produce electricity. The hard part seems to be to keep the revolutions steady, thus to keep the frequency stable.

[SD750F]

It has been years since the frequency of an AC generator has relied on the revolution (mechanical) frequency. Most generators are of DC design and then solid state switching provides the correct frequency of an AC output.

[BlindJoe]

I have a friend who owns an engineering firm, who are doing some research on the matter.

There seems to be some future on it, using the Sun to produce heat, and the engine to produce electricity. The hard part seems to be to keep the revolutions steady, thus to keep the frequency stable.

   

kinda like this?: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/16/business/16thermal.html

[Raul CB750K1]

I have a friend who owns an engineering firm, who are doing some research on the matter.

There seems to be some future on it, using the Sun to produce heat, and the engine to produce electricity. The hard part seems to be to keep the revolutions steady, thus to keep the frequency stable.

   

kinda like this?: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/16/business/16thermal.html

Exactly.


Don't know much about the frequency thing. I work with UPS's and I know they generate their own AC from the battery DC, even when the mains is giving juice. If you need to provide thousands of KVA, though, using solid-state DC-AC converters may be overkill, not just for the power involved but for the reduction in efficiency. In such a case, controlling the alternator revolutions may be easier, cheaper, and what is more, more reliable.

[SD750F]

Wind turbines convert large amounts of DC power to AC power every day.

[Raul CB750K1]

Wind turbines convert large amounts of DC power to AC power every day.

Never thought about that, I just assumed they were AC generators but then, how would you control the rotation speed?

Yeah, that makes sense, DC to AC.