Comment by telchar | Hacker News Reader

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Comment by telchar | Hacker News Reader

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Yes they are. An ideal stirling engine has the Carnot level efficiency, i.e. maximum theoretical efficiency for a heat engine.

https://blog.mide.com/thermodynamic-theory-of-the-ideal-stir...

Except the ideal one doesn't exist and multistage stream turbines are more efficient in practice.

But I suppose that having a multistage steam turbine in mars in not something will see at first

And more reliable too. The Stirling does have one huge advantage which is that it is entirely self contained.

Definitely not at that scale. Small turbines have low efficiency because tip speed increases quadratically as they get smaller.

You may be interested in reading Allan Organ’s books. He claims that aspirations to Carnot efficiency are a red herring and claims (with Much Math) that the peak efficiency is closer to 50% of The Carnot cycle.

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