4 Cylinder Engine

Have you ever looked under the hood of your car? There's a really good chance you have one of these in there!

This device is an internal combustion engine. It gets its name because it traps air and fuel (such as gasoline or diesel) in its combustion chamber(s) to release thermal energy, which then gets converted into useful mechanical energy.

Because the engine displayed has 4 combustion chambers lined up in a straight line, this configuration is known as an inline-4, or I4 engine.

If you took this device apart, you would find many different parts. Though for a sake of simplicity and demonstration, the main components of this project included:

• Crankshaft - The shaft that drives the pistons in reciprocating motion

• Connecting Rods - Connect pistons to crankshaft

• Piston Heads - Slide up and down cylinder bore

• Piston Pins - Connect piston heads to connecting rods

• Engine Block - Device housing that retains all components and cylinder bores

• Hand Crank - A manual crank that allows the user to observe the behavior of a powered I4 engine

This project was modeled and assembled via SolidWorks. All animations were created through SolidWorks Motion Study.

The real-life model was 3D-printed using a PolyJet J750 printer. The build material for this model was Vero Clear. The support material was SUP705, removed via waterjet removal / hand scraping. The removable hand crank was 3D-printed in ASA Black on a Fortus 450mc, through FDM printing.

Power may be transmitted to the crankshaft via an electric motor or manually via the removable hand crank.