🔗 Wax Motor

🔗 Engineering

A wax motor is a linear actuator device that converts thermal energy into mechanical energy by exploiting the phase-change behaviour of waxes. During melting, wax typically expands in volume by 5–20% (Freund et al. 1982).

A wide range of waxes can be used in wax motors, ranging from highly refined hydrocarbons to waxes extracted from vegetable matter. Specific examples include paraffin waxes in the straight-chain n-alkanes series. These melt and solidify over a well-defined and narrow temperature range.