I submit for your consideration Bruce Babock’s large Prony brake (steam engine not included.)
It depends on the definition of mechanical energy. Rather than argue over that, the OP did say “The mechanical energy can be converted to any other form of energy”. That pretty much opens it up to almost anything. So the sun is out, but other radiant heat sources may not be.
How could other forms of radiant energy work? Do you mean peddling a bike to turn a generator to power a lightbulb?
So, why are you doing this?
This reminds me of a lively debate in an AD&D group I was once in. The premise was that there was this group of barren islands in the far north- think of the arctic islands north of Russia, etc. Too cold for trees to grow so no firewood, and no coal. The islands’ only asset, if you could call it that, was the constant howling winds that blew at all seasons.
We spent some time debating whether it was possible for something like a civilization to exist there based solely on wind power. (A standing rule of our group was that magic was reserved for special purposes- no basing an entire culture or economy on the mundane use of magic). Assuming the materials to build windmills were available, what could a pre-industrial culture do with wind power? We agreed that heating a modest home or producing boiling water was quite feasible. By grinding rocks against each other until the sides were flat it was possible to produce large amounts of building stone. What we got into a rather heated (no pun intended) debate about was just how concentrated you could make the heat. I wanted to have iron forges heated mostly by mechanical power, with only enough charcoal necessary to actually reduce iron ore. And one guy tried to claim that with a high enough pully ratio and grinding sapphires together, you could actually get incandescent light. (Our GM finally imposed a limit, saying you could get enough heat for baking ovens, but no more).
Sapphire is annoyingly brittle, however I’ve generated visible light drilling granite with a 1/4" tungsten carbide bit spinning at ~1800 rpm. To my everlasting shame, I also know that high speed steel and diamond coated bits will also serve as light sources when properly abused.
Ultimately, the heating from radiation is a mechanical phonemenon.
What about using some sort of hand pump to condense water in a closed system?
Yes, who gave you the task of heating water using mechanical energy?
Fate? Power outage? Bar Bet?
The sun’s fusion and radiation heat transfer to the earth is a mechanical phenomenon? Not in this universe.
Hmmm - insert egg whisk into beaker, beat furiously ? Where there’s friction, there’s heat.
I have seen a wind-powered heating setup working on that principle - the windmill turned a vertical axle inside a large drum of water. Blades on the axle churned the water, static blades on the inside of the drum maximized the friction, and the water got quite surprisingly hot. Crude, but it heated a farm and the owner could fix every bit of it himself.
Around here, there are farmers with ponds used to water their stock. During the midst of a Minnesota winter, they keep a part of the pond free of ice so the stock can drink, via a completely mechanical method.
They have a floating device, with 4 paddles underwater, and a shaft sticking up into the air, with 4 blades on it. The wind blows against the blades, rotating them, and thus rotating the underwater paddles. The device is anchored near the shore where you want to keep the pond thawed. I wouldn’t say it really heats the water, but it imparts enough mechanical energy to keep the water from freezing all winter. Outside in Minnesota, that can take a lot of energy!
I think it’s all semantics at this point. Certainly, heat transfer though radiation is usually the provenance of the mechanical engineer. If you wanted to define ‘mechanical energy’ as kinetic energy or energy transfered through a physical force, then you would have no arguement from me that radiation fails this test. Given the loose conditions as stated in the OP, I would think that radiation is an acceptable means of energy transfer. Solar energy is right out though. I was wrong about that.
A small centrifugal pump set up to draw from the base of the beaker, but whose output was highly restricted will create heat via the friction of the impeller vanes on the near-static water.
If the task was merely to boil the water by mechanical energy, it would be really simple; put a small amount of water in a large syringe and block the opening, then draw back the plunger, creating a partial vacuum; if done correctly, it’s easy to get water to boil at room temperature this way.
I remember seeing a science magazine programme (I think it may have been Equinox) about people claiming to have made perpetual motion machines and other ‘free energy’ devices (the results of which are usually scams or experimental error), anyway, they showed a device consisting of a steel cylinder, drilled all over with holes, rotating axially inside a fairly close-fitting (but not touching) steel sheath - water was passed through the gap as the cylinder was rotated and it came out of the other end boiling hot.
The inventor claimed that the amount of energy coming out as heat was greater than the amount of mechanical energy put in. This claim is certainly false, but nevertheless, it may be quite an efficient heating machine - I think the configuration of the cylinder with all the holes might be creating patterns of turbulence, making zones where the water circulates extremely rapidly, heating it up.
Here is a link to an article about the device; in short, it sounds like the inventor’s wild claim about ‘more energy out than in’ might be based on complete ignorance of hysteresis.
Early research into the nature of heat set about debunking the phlogiston theory by boring cannons underwater. A blunt borer created less shavings (and presumably liberated less “phlogiston”) than a sharp one, but heated the water more. So if you take a lump of metal and drill it with a really blunt drill, that should heat your water for you pretty well, and also pay homage to centuries-old physics experiments.
This likely works more through mixing the warmer water from lower levels to prevent surface freezing. Nice, in that it works best when wind-chill and evaporative heat loss on the surface is worst due to high winds. Ice is a much better insulator than water, so once a body of water freezes over to at most a few feet, the reamaining water below is protected from the weather, and indeed recieves heat from the earth below.
To the OP, if you google “wind power” + churn you’ll find all sorts of info on mechanically powered water heaters.
Two questions:
First, just how hot can something be made through mechanical friction alone? Would the various schemes for heating water work well enough to keep, say, lead molten? Bronze? Iron?
Second, how bad is the wear on the parts that have to generate the friction? I presume that agitating a fluid isn’t as severe as grinding two solids together, but are we still talking about wearing a part completely away in a few hundred hours?
This was an event the York University Science Olympics. Several teachers were debating on the best way to heat the water. Our team did not submit a device for this event.
The winning team heated the water 57 degree C by using a hand generator to power a heating element. One group simply shook the water and raised the temp 1 degree C. Another team put the water in a copper pipe and rubbed the outside of the pipe. This also resulted in an increase of about 1 degree C.