what devices are used for converting heat energy to mechanical energy?
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The most common devices used to convert heat energy to mechanical energy are engines, including steam engines, gasoline engines, etc. If you would like to learn more, I would suggest doing some research on the topic of thermodynamics, which includes the study of heat energy and its conversion to mechanical energy.
135424
muscle wire, a nickel-titanium alloy, although it actually contracts from the heat caused by the electric current.\n\nmay not be what you had in mind, but you could build a cool robot with it I bet.
1087385
Work is the mechanical transfer of energy.  In order to get work out of an energy source, we must cause it to exert a force. \n\nFor example, we use the chemical energy in gasoline by burning it in an enclosed space (a cylinder in an internal combustion engine). Burning converts the chemical potential energy into heat (thermal energy). The heat raises the pressure inside the cylinder, and we use this pressure to move the piston. The work done is the pressure (not constant) times the area of the piston times the stroke. This only captures about a third of the energy expended as work; the rest of the energy goes off as heat.\n\nConverting thermal energy to mechanical energy is inherently inefficient. Other forms of energy conversion are much more efficient. Water power, for example is over 90% efficient.
218874
Your question is a little vague so I'll list a few applications. Aircraft instruments, piston and turbine engines, barometers, steam engines,
234658
Mechanical energy is produced when heat is carried upward by convection in the atmosphere. A process for producing a tornado-like vortex and concentrating mechanical energy where it can be captured is proposed. The existence of tornadoes proves that low intensity solar radiation can produce concentrated mechanical energy. It should be possible to control a naturally occurring process. Controlling where mechanical energy is produced in the atmosphere offers the possibility of harnessing solar energy without having to use solar collectors.  \nThe Atmospheric Vortex Engine (AVE) is a process for capturing the mechanical energy which could be produced when heat is carried upward by convection in the atmosphere. The AVE process is protected by patent applications and could become a major source of electrical energy. The unit cost of electrical energy produced with an atmospheric vortex engine could be half the cost of the next most economical alternative.  \nA vortex engine is a machine for producing and controlling a tornado-like vortex. A vortex engine consists of a cylindrical wall open at the top and with tangential air entries around its base. Heating the air within the wall using a temporary heat source such as steam starts the vortex. The heat to sustain the vortex once established is provided in cooling tower bays located outside of the cylindrical wall and upstream of the deflectors. The continuous heat source for the peripheral heat exchanger can be waste industrial heat or warm seawater. The intensity of the vortex is regulated by restricting the flow of air with dampers located upstream of the deflectors. The vortex can be stopped by restricting the airflow to deflectors with direct orientation and by opening the airflow to deflectors with reverse orientation.  \nElectrical energy is produced in turbo-expanders located in the inlet to the cooling tower bays. The pressure at the base of the vortex is less than ambient pressure because of the buoyancy of the rising air. The pressure in the cooling tower bays is sub-atmospheric because the cooling bays exhausts at the base of the vortex. The Atmospheric Vortex Engine has the same thermodynamic basis as the solar chimney. The physical tube of the solar chimney is replaced by centrifugal force in the vortex and the atmospheric boundary layer acts as the solar collector.  \nThe average upward convective heat flux at the bottom atmosphere is 150 W/m2, one sixth of this heat could be converted to work while it is carried upward by convection. The heat to work conversion efficiency of the atmospheric heat to work conversion process is approximately 15% because the heat is received at an average temperature of 15 C and given up at an average temperature of -15 C. The average work that could be produced in the atmosphere is therefore 25 W/m2. The total mechanical energy produced in the atmosphere is 12000 TW (25 W/m2 x 510 x 1012 m2) whereas the total work produced by humans is 2 TW. The quantity of mechanical energy which could be produced in the atmosphere is 6000 times greater than the mechanical energy produced by humans.  \nProducing and capturing the work requires that the expansion process be carried out at mechanical equilibrium. Without a mechanism, such as a turbine, to capture the work of expansion and to ensure that the process is carried out at mechanical equilibrium, the mechanical energy is dissipated and lost. \nAtmospheric scientists call the mechanical energy that would be produced if a unit mass of air were raised reversibly from the bottom to the top of the troposphere Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE). CAPE during periods of insolation or active convection is typically 1500 J/kg which is equal to the mechanical energy produced by lowering a kilogram of water 150 m. It is proposed that a vortex could transfer the mechanical energy down to the Earth's surface where it would be captured.  \nThe process could provide large quantity of renewable ener
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Basically energy derived from steam or heat escaping from deep underground.  Kinda like harnessing "Old Faithful".\nHTH
39424
heat is the measurement of thermal energy
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I do not quite understand your question. In all the applications you mentioned, there is but one method of using hydraulic energy. A hydraulic fluid is pressurized using a hydraulic pump and that energy is then used to move a cylinder, turn a motor, or operate a valve.
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hey men first know wat is a turbine.\nA turbine is a prime-mover used to provide the mechanical energy required for the generator.\nPrinciple of generators:\nwhenever a flux linking in a conductor changes there is an emf induced in the conductor.\n\nhere the flux is provided initially by a battery or some electrical source and the mechanical energy is provided by the turbine.\n\nIf u see the Mechnical energy from the turbine is converted into electrical.\nRemember energy can be converted from one form to another.This is the basic law.
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An alternative energy source
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A thermal power plant uses heat.  I don't know what a 'themal" power plant is.  If you can't operate a spell-checker, I doubt you have the gray matter to expend on thermo-dynamics.
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We dont have the technology.\n\nAll the current technologies that we have for converting heat to electricity, really use in the difference in temperature as a source of energy. not heat itself.\n\nWhat that means is, if I have a large quantity of heat energy spread over a huge volume of gas, there is no efficient way of recovering that energy as electricity. whereas if the same energy is contained in a small amount of  gases, we can use it to drive various kinds of prime movers to generate elecricity.\n\nEven then, the effenciency of the systems converting heat energy to electricity is dismally low.\n\nWe were fortunate enough to discover technology that efficiently converts electric energy into heat and various other useful forms including light and motion. moreover we have efficient transmission systems. so we use every known source of energy to convert it into electricity and move it around for consumption in all kinds of ways\n\nSome day, if somebody discovers a very efficient way of transmitting and utilizing heat energy (though improbable, not impossible), we might have cross country heat lines instead of electric ones.
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thermodynamics?  heat transfer?  physics?
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there are 2 ways:\n1. using a thermocouple u will generate a potential difference. but the thermocouple will not generate much current so the power will be small.\n2. this is a classical method. a steamengine coupled to a dynamo.
76877
You might be able to make a PM machine based on a vaporizing and recondensing fluid, which is what I'm guessing you're getting at. PM, that is, as long as the necessary temperature differences continue to exist. You would need to vaporize at a low point and condense at a high point, with wheel motion bringing the heavier containers of condensed fluid down to a warmer location for vaporization. It doesn't violate any thermodynamic laws since it takes heat input and exhausts cooler output, just like the water-bobbing woodpecker does. Do it!
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There is a lot of possibilities starting from the simplest one which is wind generator.  More complicated would be water generation where a usually dam is build and potential energy of the water accumulated behind the dam moves water through turbines and generates power. Some other may include thermal energy of the earth. If you drill deep enough you will get to the earth crust zone where temperature is high to produce steam and this steam is converted (generated) into the electric power. Ocean waves are also source to generate energy.
482027
Heat is energy. It can be transformed from heat to another form of energy like mechanical energy, but the the second law of thermodynamics states that for a closed system entropy either increases or stays the same. This means that wasted heat energy in any system either increases or stays the same unless additional energy enters or leaves the system. If the system is the entire universe, then anytime work is done, either none or more heat is produced . . . the universe can't "unheat" or cool itself (as a whole). Pockets of the universe can reduce entropy, but only by shifting that entropy to another location in the universe.\n\nWhat does this mean? It means that all forms of work produce heat as a byproduct. Even wind produces frictional heat, and wind comes from temperature gradients (uneven heat). Electricity is produced by heat (even nuclear fission power or future fusion power heat water to produce steam to turn a turbine which turns a generator that produces electricity). Hydrogen is produced by reforming technology in refineries and requires heat. Hydrogen can be produced from water by using electricity which uses heat. Ion thrusters use electricity (currently from small nuclear power systems in space probes which produce heat to produce the needed electricity). \n\nI don't think that we're going to get away from heat energy anytime soon.