▪ HISTORY

The Stirling engine came into existence in September 27, 1816.

when a then twenty-six year old Scottish pastor, Mr. Robert Stirling
(1790-1878) has this engine type patented. This happened eight
years before the expert work of Sadi Carnot entitled “Reflections on
the Motive Power of Fire“ was published. In other words, it took place
at the time no hot-air engine theory had so far been developed.
However, Stirling’s patent is proof the author was then fully aware of
all the conditions necessary for heat to be effectively transformed into
mechanical operation. In 1818 he built a large engine of 2 HP output
to pump water from a stone quarry in Ayrshire, Scotland, and in 1827
and 1840 Stirling was granted two more patents for the improved
variants of his machine. Robert Stirling worked on hot-air engines, as
they were called at that time, all his life. As a tribute to their creator
we see their renaissance in the electrical power sector.

Numerous applications of
Stirling engines were thought up
during the 19th century and at
the beginning of the 20th
century. They were used to
pump water for cattle in the
drought-plagued west of the
United States, on railroads, in
mines, supplying water to countless mansions and farms.
 Small Stirling engines provided drives for dental drills,
residential fans, sewing machines, and so on. The large engine types
were used to drive winches and in other industrial applications.
Liquid, solid, and gas fuels were used. Many of these engines were
developed by a Swedish inventor, Mr. John Ericsson, whose most
noted project was the Monitor armoured battleship of the U.S. Civil
War period. Mr. Ericsson had built a lot of engines based on Stirling’s
principle for commerce, industry, and agriculture. He was well aware
of the Stirling engine’s advantages and his constructions were ahead
of their time. For example, he built a Stirling engine driven merely by
solar energy. The Stirling engine in the 19th century was confined
largely by the metallurgical possibilities of the time. This fact and its
higher weight were the reasons why the engine was finally pushed
back by newly developed internal combustion engines and electric
motors. The Stirling engine was almost forgotten until the 1920’s.

It was only in 1938 that Mr. N.V. Philips of Netherlands

stimulated interest in this engine type again by commencing the
development of a small Stirling engine with an output of 200W. Mr.
Philips, manufacturer of well-known desk wireless sets, used this
engine as a compact, silent power source that, contrary to spark-
ignition engines, did not employ spark plugs, thus forming no
interference to the radio waves. In seeking potentialities to enhance
the specific output and efficiency, he found out that gases of a lower
molecular weight, such as helium and hydrogen, are more
convenient.

In 1968 the Swedish FFV Group established a joint venture with

other Swedish companies to explore the possibilities of developing
improved serial versions of the up-to-date Stirling engine. This new
joint venture was named United Stirling. A crucial part in this step was
predominantly played by the looming oil crisis which induced a
tendency to use fuels for the motor vehicles other than gasoline or
fuel oil. Making use of the N.V. Philips licence, this company started
development of an engine of 200 HP output intended for municipal
buses, off-road vehicles, and submarines.
 In the 1970’s United Stirling worked hard on the development of
a drive unit for passenger cars. Having gained experience with the
problematic production of 4-615 series engines, United Stirling
therefore decided to use the construction of the Philips 4-65 engine
with a tiling plate for this purpose. This engine had been submitted to
a long development process aimed at its application in passenger
cars. One of the following V4X2 types was fitted in the Ford Pinto
passenger car with automatic transmission in 1974 to be presented to
the representatives of the Ford Company. The car confirmed its
qualities with its comfort and driving quietness, however, it was not
put into production. Development went on up to the final type of
V4X35, which was fitted in the Ford Taurus car with manual
transmission in 1974!!!
 The reason for the three exclamation marks is the fact that the
weakest point in the Stirling engine is just the quick change in the
output, which is required by a manual transmission much more than
by an automatic transmission. Despite the satisfactory results of a
driving test covering 10 000 km and with all the requirements for both
acceleration and deceleration met (90% of output within 0.5 s) series
production was never commenced due to the price of the drive unit,
which caused a notable rise in the price of the output control system.