Stirling Engine

Semester long project for Manufacturing Engineering

Fall 2022

Johns Hopkins University

Casting, manual machining, lathe, mill, sheet metal, wire EDM, TIG welding, measuring and tolerancing, mechanism assembly

Manufacture and assemble the components for a Stirling Engine

This project employed numerous manufacturing techniques for students to learn, including:
-Casting and turning the fly wheel
-Turning the piston and piston housing
-Milling the base stand off, piston, and piston housing
-Wire EDMing the base
-Sheet metal forming the feet and connecting rods
-TIG welding the base stand off to the base (optional)

After some difficulty getting the engine to run due to the pistons being out of phase, I was able to manufacture and produce the Stirling Engine. Check out the Supporting Materials page for a video of the engine running.

This project was a challenge to learn new manufacturing technique, primarily casting and welding which I had not had as much experience in compared to traditional manual machining.
I was the second individual in the class to produce a working engine, 2 weeks ahead of schedule. I used my remaining time to assist my classmates with their assemblies, sharing the mistakes I made on my engine and how I fixed them, and helping with machining. The machine shop was pure chaos, but I was happy to help out.