Air Engines is a comprehensively illustrated, self contained and readable account of the evolution of the air engine, of its many applications of the latest techniques of design and of future applications. Air Engines spans the entire subject from previously undisclosed technical details of Robert Stirling's original inventions of 1816 through to engines designed and under construction in 2001. The simplest treatment yet published of the regenerator allows optimum design (wire diameter and mesh number) to be read from charts in terms of proposed operating conditions (pressure and rpm). Air Engines will be considerable interest to all those involved with prime movers, power generation, Stirling and air engines. Additionally engineers dealing with the various applications of the thermal regenerator, with energy efficiency and with conservation issues will find this excellent volume of value. The complete contents are: Air engines; The Stirling engine; Later single-cylinder Stirling engines; The Philips engines; Modern knowledge...and all that; Reassessment; Post-revival; The regenerator problem; Two decades of optimism; Thermodynamic design; Completing the picture; By intuition - or by design? ; The heyday to come; and In praise of Robert Stirling.