March 3rd, Nitinol

The nitinol group has realized that nitinol is extremely difficult to work with, both theoretically and experimentally. We have decided to use a stirling engine instead of a nitinol engine to increase the efficiency of a car. Car engines (internal combustion engines) are at best 20% efficient. The energy that’s not used to make a car move is left over in the form of heat, which exists the car as exhaust. Using a stirling engine, we hope to turn this waste heat into electric energy. Stirling engines have shown to work better than nitinol engines, but still use a temperature differential to generate kinetic energy. This kinetic energy will be switched to electric, which will be used to power electric heaters. If all goes well, people will be able to get into their car on a cold morning and get blasted with heat as soon as they start their car, as well as have an increased efficiency of their car engines.