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Steam Power: Novel Use of an Engine Design Project to Cross-Link Knowledge

from Courses in both Mechanical Design and Thermodynamics

Conference Paper in Proceedings - Frontiers in Education Conference · December 2006

DOI: 10.1109/FIE.2006.322515 · Source: IEEE Xplore

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Steam Power: Novel Use of an Engine Design Project
to Cross-Link Knowledge from Courses in both
Mechanical Design and Thermodynamics
Krishan Kumar Bhatia and Eric Constans
Rowan University
Glassboro, NJ 08028 bhatia@rowan.edu
Abstract - To enhance the learning potential from
traditional semester-long “projects” in individual and
engineering courses, a novel steam engine design project
was undertaken between two concurrent junior level
mechanical engineering courses: Mechanical Design and
Thermodynamics. As in traditional class projects,
students were provided the opportunity to build team
skills and gain hands-on experience. Utilizing student self
assessment, this steam engine project was compared to a
Stirling engine design project undertaken solely in a
Mechanical Design Course. Students participating in the
steam engine project reported increased use of both
mechanical design and thermodynamics principles while
undertaking the project as compared to those participating
in the Stirling engine project. Steam engine project
students also reported an increased development of team
working skills.
Index Terms – engineering, thermodynamics, machine design
INTRODUCTION
The efficacy of semester-long design projects to enhance
learning, emphasize course fundamentals, and build team
working skills is well documented [1]. While these projects
are beneficial, they seldom allow students to practice
knowledge from other engineering courses simultaneously.
For example, mechanical engineering undergraduate students
typically take a course in Fluid Mechanics. While a project in
this course may help to reinforce fluids concepts, it would be
unusual to find the Fluid Mechanics project emphasizing
principles from a System Dynamics and Controls course.
Therefore, the burden of providing a connection between
seemingly unrelated courses often falls on a team project
undertaken in a senior engineering capstone design course [2-
5]. These senior design courses often employ each team of
students with a different project. Therefore, while one team
may combine principles from a Heat Transfer and Gas
Dynamics course in their project, another may use Machine
Design and Electronics fundamentals. Thus, the great variety
of projects between senior design teams and the unstructured
nature of these courses cannot guarantee all students will have
the opportunity to simultaneously apply in-depth technical
knowledge gained from several core courses. Furthermore,
this process may not afford the student knowledge that several
seemingly different fields within their college curriculum were
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actually developed concurrently during the problem driven
growth of engineering science. For example, from a student’s
perspective, combustion and statistical quality control may
appear to be unrelated topics despite the fact that the history of
automotive development shows a simultaneous advance in
knowledge within both disciplines.
To circumvent these shortcomings of traditional semester-
long design projects and capstone senior design courses, a
novel steam engine design project was undertaken between
two concurrent junior level mechanical engineering courses:
Mechanical Design and Thermodynamics. These two courses
are often considered by students to be very different subjects
with no obvious areas of overlap. Preliminary efforts have
shown success in integrating these two courses through a
compressor design project [6]. The steam engine project
discussed here challenged students to design and build a
working reciprocating steam engine. As in traditional class
projects, students were provided the opportunity to build team
skills and gain hands-on experience. However, unlike
capstone design courses, each student was required to apply
in-depth technical knowledge and cross-link information from
both courses. Further, owing to the steam engine’s
obsolescence in modern society, exact theory and design
equations concerning these machines are rarely taught in any
engineering course. Thus, an additional, critical project
component required students to investigate the steam engine’s
history and development during the design process itself. This
paper describes the project, as well as student self-assessment
of the project’s merits and shortcomings relative to other
projects in traditional engineering courses. Self assessment
results are compared to those from a control class performing
a similar Stirling project. While the control section’s project
needed information from both subjects, it was undertaken as
part of only the Mechanical Design class and not
Thermodynamics.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
As alluded to earlier, the steam engine project undertaken
challenged student teams to design, analyze, build, and test a
working steam engine. The very nature of this project made it
an ideal choice for linking information from both a
Thermodynamics and Mechanical Design course. Thus, the
project was undertaken concurrently between these two
courses. Students were provided design parameters regarding
October 28 – 31, 2006, San Diego, CA

maximum steam pressure and flow rate supply to their
individual engines. With these constraints, the design of an
actual engine, including its valve mechanism and
reciprocation assembly, necessitated the use of principles and
equations from both courses. Figure 1 is an example of one
team’s final steam engine. Student teams participated in a
short competition to determine which team’s engine could
achieve the highest rotational velocity. Each team was also
required to submit a design report outlining all calculations
and containing detailed mechanical drawings of each
component.
FIGURE 1
EXAMPLE OF STUDENT DESIGNED AND BUILT STEAM ENGINE
With a separate class of junior level students, a Stirling
engine design project was conducted. Like the steam engine
project, these students had to design, build, and test a working
reciprocating engine operating on a thermodynamic cycle (the
only difference being the cycle in question was the Stirling air
as opposed to the Rankine steam cycle). Figure 2 is an
example of one team’s Stirling engine.
FIGURE 2
EXAMPLE OF STUDENT DESIGNED AND BUILT STIRLING ENGINE
These student teams also participated in a performance
competition and submitted a detailed design report. The
students participating in this project were also taking
Mechanical Design and Thermodynamics concurrently.
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However, unlike the class participating in the steam engine
project, these students’ Stirling engine project was limited to
their Mechanical Design course alone. Although successful
design of any heat engine requires use of thermodynamic
principles, these students were presented the project solely in
their Mechanical Design course, and their project performance
affected grades in that course alone. Again, while these
students used thermodynamic fundamentals while designing
their engines, unlike the steam engine students, their Stirling
engine project was not part of the curriculum in their
concurrent Thermodynamics course.
It must be noted that the overwhelming majority of
students follow the normal Rowan University curriculum, and
thus take these two courses concurrently in their junior year of
study. However, successful project implementation does not
require that 100% of students be enrolled in both courses. It
was the rare case that a student or two was enrolled in one
course but not the other. Therefore these rare students were
distributed evenly among the teams to ensure they did not end
up on the same group. This was done to prevent any single
team from being highly deficient in a particular knowledge
area.
ASSESSMENT METHOD
In addition to emphasizing course fundamentals and building
teamwork skills, the steam engine project goals were to
provide a single design problem that would afford each
student the opportunity to cross-link information from both
courses involved. To assess the effectiveness of this method,
22 students participating in the project were surveyed. Fifteen
students participating in the Stirling engine project served as a
control group. To each student, the following ten questions
were asked:
1. The design phase of the project required extensive use of
principles from my Mechanical Design course.
2. The design phase of the project required extensive use of
principles from my Thermodynamics course.
3. The fabrication phase of the project required extensive use
of principles from my Mechanical Design course.
4. The fabrication phase of the project required extensive use
of principles from my Thermodynamics course.
5. The project helped to increase my teamwork skills.
6. The project helped to increase my fabrication skills.
7. This project required extensive use of knowledge from
earlier courses (i.e. Material Science, Machine Design, etc.).
8. The amount of time spent on this project was
commensurate with the knowledge gained.
9. This project was much easier than projects in other courses.
10. Future classes of Mechanical Engineering students should
do this project.
Responses were given on a 1-5 scale, with a score of unity
corresponding to “Strongly Disagree”, three corresponding to
“Neutral”, and five to “Strongly Agree”. The first four
questions were aimed at assessing the use of either mechanical
design or thermodynamics principles in the project’s design or
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 Session T2E
fabrication phase. The next two questions were aimed at which was probed with questions 3, was virtually unchanged
assessing student perceived increase in skill level after between the two projects. Those performing the steam engine
completing the project. The final four questions address a few project did indicate a much higher use of thermodynamics
other issues related to project scope and potential principles during their fabrication phase (as probed in question
implementation with future classes of students. 4). The cross-course steam engine project also seemed to
increase student team working skills to a greater extant than
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION the single course Stirling engine project, as shown through
Student self assessment survey results are tabulated in Table I question 5. This is yet another indication that allowing
and shown graphically in Figure 3. Values shown are the projects to span core engineering courses is beneficial to the
average of all responses for each of the ten questions. student.
Questions 6 and 7 dealt with overall increases in
TABLE I fabrication skills and use of knowledge from other courses
RESULTS OF STUDENT SURVEY outside of Mechanical Design and Thermodynamics. Results
Stirling Engine showed little difference between the two projects in this area.
Steam Engine
(Mechanical Question 8 indicates that work involved during the steam
Question (Cross Course Change
Design Class engine project was more commensurate with the knowledge
Project)
Only) gained, however, question 9 clearly shows student perception
1 3.8 4.5 17.2% that the steam engine project was much harder than projects in
2 3.6 4.4 23.2% other courses. Question 10 is one of the most interesting, and
3 4.1 4.0 -1.6% showed the largest percent difference between the two groups.
4 3.3 3.6 9.1% In this question, students were asked whether future classes of
students should perform the project. Steam engine students
5 4.2 4.7 11.8%
overwhelmingly supported this idea. However, Stirling engine
6 4.5 4.7 2.6% students were only slightly positive on the idea. This, along
7 3.4 3.3 -2.8% with the information gained from question 8, may indicate that
8 3.7 4.2 15.0% in addition to the chance of applying knowledge and cross-
9 2.4 1.9 -22.1% linking information from other courses, the cross-course
10 3.6 4.7 30.4% project was more valuable from the students’ perspective.
Thus, they were more enthusiastic about recommending it for
5
future students.
Stirling Engine
Steam Engine
It must be noted that this study was based on a very
4.5
limited number of survey responses (15 for the Stirling engine
4 project, 22 for the steam engine project). Owing to the small
sample size, standard deviations are quite large and confidence
3.5
intervals wide for the average values reported for each
Response

3 question. A broader study encompassing more students could

alleviate this problem. An analysis of variance was also done
2.5
determine if differences reported are truly statistically
2 significant. Using an F-Test, a high probability exists that
variances in the data are significantly different between the
1.5
two groups. This probability was particularly high in
1 questions 1, 2, 5, and 10. Again, a broader study would help
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
to determine if these large differences in variance are truly
Question Number
significant or are a result of small sample size.
FIGURE 3
CHART ILLUSTRATING STUDENT SURVEY RESPONSES CONCLUSION
As shown by the results of questions 1 and 2, students A comparison study was performed between two different
participating the in the steam engine project tended to agree methods for implementing a design project. By analyzing
more with the statement that the project required extensive use student self assessment surveys, it was found that spanning the
of mechanical design or thermodynamics principles as project across two relevant courses proved more beneficial
compared to those students in the Stirling engine project. This than confining the project to a single course. Students
result indicates that having the project span both courses participating in the cross-course project indicated an increased
tended to increase use of fundamental principles during the use of course fundamentals during the project’s design phase.
project’s design phase. This was exactly the goal of having They also indicated a stronger increase in team working skills
this multi-disciplinary project span multiple courses as and were much more likely to recommend the project to future
opposed to confining it within a single course. However, use classes of students despite perceiving the project as being
of mechanical design principles during the fabrication phase,
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harder than those participating in a design project as part of a
single course alone.
To ensure the result’s statistical accuracy, future studies
comparing this type of cross-course project to traditional ones
should be undertaken in classes of larger student enrollment.
Furthermore, future studies could also examine the conceptual
gain from this type of project in terms of a thermodynamics or
mechanical design concept inventory.
REFERENCES
[1] Mourtos, N., “The Nuts and Bolts of Cooperative Learning in
Engineering”, J. of Engineering Education, January 1997, pp. 35-37.
[2] Dutson, A., Todd, R., Magleby, S., and Sorensen, C., "A Review of
Literature on Teaching Engineering Design Through Project-Oriented
1-4244-0257-3/06/$20.00 © 2006 IEEE
36th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference
T2E-12
View publication stats
Session T2E
Capstone Courses", J. of Engineering Education, January 1997, pp. 17-
28.
[3] Bright, A., Phillips, J., “The Harvey Mudd Engineering Clinic Past,
Present, Future”, J. of Engineering Education, April 1999, pp. 189-194.
[4] Todd, R., Magleby, S., Sorensen, C., Swan, B., and Anthony, D., “A
Survey of Capstone Engineering Courses in North American”, J. of
Engineering Education, April 1995, pp. 165-174.
[5] Todd, R., Sorensen, C., Magleby, S., “Designing a Senior Capstone
Course to Satisfy Industrial Customers”, J. of Engineering Education,
April 1993, pp. 92-100.
[6] Constans, E., Gabler, H., “The Compressor Project: Coupling
Thermodynamics and Mechanical Design in a Cross-Curricular Project”,
30th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, 2000.
October 28 – 31, 2006, San Diego, CA