From: Roarty, Francis X
* I think one of the little sterling [Stirling] models would make an interesting reactor platform where the Ni foam or skeletal cat is captive at the bottom of the cylinder and the hydrogen gas is sealed inside like the Papp engine – a sort of hybrid between only using exotic gases like Papp and the present Rossi or Mills device using pressurized gas with Ni powder or skeletal cat. Something like this, but not exactly - has been under discussion for a while in another context. It could possibly work with Ni-H as well, since the “trigger” temperature is achieved by gas compression during normal operation. This could work in what is known as the “double alpha” design, which has four pistons and forms what is essentially a complete loop. The single alpha configuration, nor the beta or gamma, probably would not work well, since the Carnot spread is narrow. In fact, this is close to what Papp should have done. As Fran will appreciate, the alpha design can provide what is high gas flow through Casimir cavities, when properly implemented. To the extent that the “T-effect” (excess heat from Ni-H) depends on cavity containment (even if that containment is only the first step in a two or three step thermal process) then this double alpha Stirling could be a preferred implementation over any other. If he was not a con-man from the start, then Papp’s design would have benefited from rudimentary knowledge of the thermodynamics of heat engines– leading many to suspect outright fraud. Since he used no effective external heat sink at all, in the sense that his pistons were sealed - his engine could never have been very reliable. I suspect that it did work, barely, despite the idiotic design, but for what is a completely different rationale than what Papp thought was going on… Oh well, another nutty inventor bites the dust. Figure 12.23 on the page below shows (almost) the proper type of Stirling engine component arrangement that I am talking about - the double alpha– which is the image with four double acting pistons (which would need to be connect mechanically on a single crankshaft but remain thermally isolated). The nickel - in the form of nickel sponge could serve as the four “regenerators” aka “recuperators” and any one of the four cylinders can serve as the heat sink. IOW - only one cylinder, the most forward-facing one in the car, needs to be water cooled using a radiator, as in the typical ICE - and the other three get progressively hotter in operation (with proper plumbing which is not shown) and those three would need to be made of ceramic or cermet to tolerate the heat. http://www.powerfromthesun.net/Book/chapter12/chapter12.html Jones
