Air Engines: The History, Science, and Reality of the Perfect Engine [Hardcover]

Theodor Finkelstein (Author), Allan J Organ (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0791801713 | ISBN-13: 978-0791801710 | Publication Date: September 1, 2001 | Edition: 1

The original Air Engines (also known as a heat, hot air, caloric, or Stirling engines), predated the modern internal combustion engine. This early engine design always had great potential for high efficiency/low emission power generation. However, the primary obstacle to its practical use in the past has been the lack of sufficiently heat-resistant materials. This obstacle has now been eliminated due to the higher strength of modern materials and alloys. Several companies in the U.S. and abroad are successfully marketing new machines based on the Air Engine concept. Allan Organ and Theodor Finkelstein are two of the most respected researchers in the field of Air Engines. Finkelstein is considered a pioneer of Stirling cycle simulation. The historical portion of the book is based on four famous articles he published in 1959. The rest of the chapters assess the development of the air engine and put it in the modern context, as well as investigate its future potential and applications. The audience for this book includes mechanical engineers working in power related industries, as well as researchers, academics, and advanced students concerned with recent developments in power generation. Originally co-published by Professional Engineering Publishing (UK) and ASME Press in 2001. Reprinted with minor corrections by ASME Press in 2009.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 268 pages
• Publisher: ASME Press (American Society of Mechanical Engineers); 1 edition (September 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0791801713
• ISBN-13: 978-0791801710
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #480,988 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent tretise on the innovations in and challenges facing stirling engines, January 9, 2007

By 

Austin Liu (Richmond, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Air Engines: The History, Science, and Reality of the Perfect Engine (Hardcover)

I had spent the past several years informally studying Stirling engines, and this book vastly improved my understanding of the workings of this kind of engine in the course of a week. Stirling engines are known for their great efficiency, but the one historic difficulty preventing the widespread deployment of these engines is power density. (Stirling engines tend to be far larger than other less efficient engines of the same power output, so much so as to have been impractical for many applications. . . until now) The challenges to the development of a power dense Stirling engine are examined one at a time, and explained in both common terms, as well as formulas and equations, though admittedly, some of the text was rather hard to understand without a great deal of effort. This is understandable; this book is, after all, aimed at engineers.

The book comes in two parts: chapters 1-4 are by Theodor Finkelstein, and cover a pretty detailed history of air engines, including the Ericsson engine, and the Stirling engine and its variants, from their invention and early history through the beginnings of what Allan Organ calls the "dark ages", a period of about 50 years when virtually no work was done on this kind of engine. Allan Organ authors the book from chapters 5 through the end, and covers the rebirth of the Stirling engine in the 1930's through the present. His approach is a lot more technical, and relies much more on equations and other technical explanations.

If you are a casual hobbyist, or simply investigating Stirling engines without a background in mechanical engineering, I still recommend this book. Do not let the equations intimidate you; get as much out of the rest of the book as you can. This book offers the collected understanding of many years of research into the cause and effect behind the operations of this class of engines, and if you are willing to work to understand it, you will find this book to be very helpful to your research.