Rubber Band Heat Engine

DCS Code: 4F30.70 Last Updated: March 27, 2026
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Safety Warnings

Purpose

Rubber bands contract when heated — the opposite of most materials — due to entropic elasticity. A bicycle wheel with matched rubber bands rotates continuously under a heat lamp, demonstrating a working heat engine driven by this anomalous thermal behavior.

Bicycle wheel mounted vertically on a white stand with rubber bands stretched from an offset center hub to the rim. A large black cylindrical heat lamp is positioned to one side, plugged into a switch box on the base.
Figure 1: The rubber band heat engine: a bicycle wheel with rubber bands running from an offset central hub to the rim. The black heat lamp heats bands on one side, causing them to contract and rotate the wheel continuously.