Smallest Stirling Engine

Smallest Stirling Engine

The title for the smallest stirling engine ever built has several contenders. One of which came onto the the stage very recently and took the previous title holders position. Unfortunately the smallest stirling engines available to buy are limited to the typical ones that you can find on this site, usually several inches tall and several in diameter. To buy the smallest engines in the world would cost a LOT of money as these are usually one-off or limited production run models for research and development purposes.

Smallest Stirling Engines Compilation

I will now begin to go from large stirling engines down to smaller ones. The first engine here is a typical low temperature stirling engine, these are fairly commonplace and you can find engines like this on this site -

scimod ltd stirling engine

scimod ltd stirling engine

Next is a one off by youtube user HEETGAS,he builds some great little engines -

 

Next in line is the micro stirling engine by a company called Micro Star International (MSI). They have developed an engine that will sit on top o computers central processing unit (CPU) and work off the excess heat, this will in turn take the heat away from the CPU. This engine is approx an inch and a half in diameter and 2 inches tall, unfortunately it is not for sale, i would love one myself  :) -

msi micro stirling engine

msi micro stirling engine

The world’s smallest Stirling Engine -

The worlds smallest stirling engine was only recently developed, in fact, it is so small that you need an electron microscope to see it!!!  It is just three micro meters wide and consists of just one particle, and it works on the same principles as a stirling engine. At this very moment researchers have not found a useful purpose for these engine but who knows what the future holds for them -

worlds smallest stirling engine

worlds smallest stirling engine