Engineering Drawing Applied to the Study of the Design of a Two-Cylinder Entablature Steam Engine with Parallel Motion Crosshead

Abstract

This article presents an investigation into a historical invention consisting of a stationary steam engine designed by Henry Muncaster: a two-cylinder entablature steam engine with parallel motion crosshead. The present interdisciplinary research, based on the theoretical and methodological concepts of engineering drawing and computer-aided design, has allowed us to understand the operation of this invention from the 3D CAD model of the invention obtained thanks to the original drawings published in the magazine Model Engineer in 1957 and reproduced in 2017, since there is no descriptive information related to the invention. However, there have been drawbacks in the geometric modeling process since the dimensions of some components did not exist and in other cases they were erroneous. For this reason, dimensional, geometric and movement constraints (degrees of freedom) had to be applied so that said 3D CAD model would be coherent and functional, and an interference analysis also had to be performed. Finally, the existing symmetry in the arrangement of the cylinders and the crosshead has been discovered, it being essential to guarantee that the forces and movements are uniform on both sides of the steam engine, and allowing the work to be carried out in a more balanced manner by reducing vibrations and improving the overall efficiency of the invention.