50,000 ways not to make a Heat Recycling engine
Edison is credited with a famous quote, When asked how he felt about 50,000 "failures" with different materials to make a filament for a light bulb, he replies "I learned 50,000 ways not to make a light bulb". (No failures.)
Heat Recycling has been tried on heat engines, and the usual wisdom is that it cannot work. However, the "heat engine" world has been struggling under false assumptions from an incorrect model of heat engines. Lets say they have "learned some ways not to make a heat recycling engine".
We think Edison would agree, a heat recycling engine is a bit more complicated than a filament There are many more than 50,000 ways NOT to make a heat recycling engine.
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Way number one...
(not to make a heat recycling engine.)
Most attempts to date amount to putting heat back in to the engine via its vapor intake. That results in "thermal runaway", because heat engines are not actually pushed by heat, but by pressure.
All heat engines currently out there, are "heat adding" engines. They create a pressure difference by increasing the heat of a vapor. Starting with a hotter vapor does not create a greater pressure difference after adding heat, it creates temperatures your engine cannot handle.
Don't worry, we are not going to try and list all 50,000 ways not to do it. This one is important though, because if your engine model is the "waterfall" model, this should have worked. More heat in would be more work out. The real engine model is the vapor expansion model. So these guys were not dummies, they just believed what they learned at the university. (Ok, that's not proof, but they were not dummies).
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