posted on May, 6 2012 @ 05:18 AM
Explanation:
Ok here is my idea ...
I call it the stent-vent valve and I believe it could be made with any bimetalic strip ... not just nitinol!
Originally I took the concept of a medical stent ...
I do NOT envisage such complicated design and instead I am working off of a cycinder of collapsed 'garden' lattice.
This cycinder of lattice would act as a closed cylinder whilst remaining below the transition temperature of the pre-trained nitinol wire slat.
The individual nitinol slats in the lattice would 'pop' straight at the transition temperature and would force the lattice to expand ...
The effect here is twofold ...
1stly The nitinol wire slats of the lattice now extert a pressure as they pop the lattice work open and this is where we get the heat energy
transformed into a mechanical force.
How that is captured and put to work can be a matter for debate.
2ndly The hot fluid/gas (steam
) pumped into the stentvent, to force it open via both pressure and heat influx which triggers the popping at the
trasition temperature, ... is now vented out the open pours of the lattice and this creates both a sudden dropping in internal pressure of the
stentvent and a rapid cooling due to that sudden depressurization and the drops the temperature below the pretrained nitinols transition temperature
and the stentvent 'relaxes' as it contracts under the cooling and returns to a closed state.
Finally the whole cycle is repeated.
Personal Disclosure: The above is a very rough idea and any errors in logic etc are my own.