Stirling Engine Design and Machining
The goal of this project is to make a heat engine that can convert heat energy into rotational kinetic energy of the flywheel. Both creativity in design and machining skill are necessary to complete a beautiful and effective engine.
Check out a video of the engine's maiden voyage to the right!
To build this engine, I used 3-axis mills and manual lathes. The engine is built mostly out of aluminum, with some high-stress parts in steel and some high-friction parts in brass.
By building this engine, I not only learned how to efficiently complete these parts, but also learned the design principles needed for hand-manufactured metal parts.
To the left, check out the top assembly of my stirling engine, rendered in SOLIDWORKS.
Throughout the 2024 Fall semester, I will update this page as I manufacture more parts of this engine. So far I've finished all parts except for the wooden base.
Machining demands excruciating precision. See some videos of me precision machining of complex parts below!
I hope to keep this engine as a display piece for many years, so I'm going to great lengths to make sure that the tolerancing is perfected and the parts are nicely polished.
This effort has also been a great opportunity to hone the GD&T skills I learned during my internship at Tesla!
Milling aluminum 6061 T6 mounting block island feature with MasterCAM
Milling brass piston flange using custom fixture
Finished Mounting Block
Mounting Block Engineering Drawing