The Kontax Nano Flux Thermo-acoustic Twin Cylinder engine has an anodised aluminium construction with delicately styled brass fittings. It features twin cylinders running in a parallel configuration, self-lubricating graphite pistons running in borosilicate glass cylinders and stainless steel regenerator stacks. Unlike Stirling engines, this thermo-acoustic engine has no displacer and can therefore run in either direction. It runs on two tiny candle-sized flames with the top speed a blistering 3300 rpm.
Thermoacoustic engines are known by several names, including resonant engine, lag engine and lamina flow engine. Conventional Stirling engines have a power piston and a second device usually called a displacer that shuttles air between the hot and cold parts of the engine. Thermoacoustic engines don’t use a displacer to shuttle the air around, but rely on a standing wave to do the work of a displacer. Inside the engine at the hot end there is dense slug of stainless steel wool known as a stack, which is heated by the flame. At the other end of the glass tube, by the brass fins, is a barrier with a tiny hole through it, known as the choke. The standing wave resonates between the stack and the choke. In operation, a packet of air is compressed by flywheel and piston motion which heats it slightly. The packet of air is pushed into the end of the hot stack where it absorbs heat from the stack and main tube walls, which causes an overall expansion within the system and drives the piston outward. Piston motion outwards decompresses the packet of air and and it moves out of the hot stack which causes an overall cooling and decompression within the system which does more work on the piston, pulling it in.
The engine is available fully assembled and ready to go or as a self-assembly kit.
Click the image below for PDF assembly, operation and maintenance instructions for this engine.