Sterling Engine
The manufacturing methods used throughout this project include casting, turning using a lathe, sheet metal punching and bending, milling, and facing with a lathe and a mill. As the TA for the class in a future semester, I also gained experience with water jets.
This project taught me the importance of tolerance and helped me improve my manufacturing skills. While my sterling engine did work, it occasionally would fail to start. This is due to some parts being slightly out of tolerance, resulting in inefficient transfer of loads and improper sealing of the glass tube. This project also reinforced the importance of proper safety gear when manufacturing, as several people injured themselves while installing the fragile glass tube on their own engines. If I were to make changes to this project, I would have turned the flywheel more to decrease its weight and used larger o-rings to properly seal the air in the glass tube. I would also change the design of the brass connectors to be straighter in order to transfer load more efficiently.