Beam engine is one of the most popular engines in the last century. There are many types of beam engine and its working principle is very easy. In this report, you are going to see the basic principle of beam engines and how they work. Also, you are going to find some of the types of beam engines and their application in the industry and how it helped solving many problems that faced engineers the last century. A brief explanation about each type of beam engines that talks about the differences between them and what makes each type unique. These types will also be identified using figures to describe how it works clearly. Concerning the manufacturing and the Assembly of the parts of the mechanism, there will be a brief explanation about the manufacturing of each part in general and how we can assemble all the parts of the mechanism together. And last but not least, a diagram of the chosen type of beam engine will be afforded to have more clarity about the parts of the mechanism.

Beam engines are one of the types of steam engine. The basic principle of these engines is that it converts the rotary movement of a shaft connected to steam engine into vertical movement to a piston connected to the mechanism. This piston can pump liquids efficiently. The main part in this mechanism is the beam that connects the link of the piston with 1the link of the shaft. So, as you can see in the figure below, this mechanism is six bar mechanism because it consists from five parts plus the ground. This mechanism was invented in 1745. They were made mainly to connect it to water pumps in order to get rid of water in the mines in that time.

There are many types of beam engine that scientists made to use in variants purposes. These engines and mechanisms were made to solve specific problems to save time and effort. Some types of these beam engines are as follow:

1- Six column beam engine:

Six column beam engine is a steam engine connected to a six bar mechanism in order to work as pump. This type of beam engine is the same of what we discussed above which we used to give a general idea about the beam engine. The movement of the piston in the figure in the previous page can help pumping the water out of the mines, and this is the main purpose of inventing this mechanism.

2- Individual beam engine:

Individual beam engine is one of the most important engines that human made. This type of beam engine is the same that is used in trains that work on steam. Individual beam engine works vice versa the Six column engine. In Six column engine, the rotary motion creates the linear motion of the cylinder, but in individual steam engine, the power of the steam pushes the cylinder and create the rotary motion of the train’s wheel. Check out the next two figures in the next page to see the mechanism.

3- Cornish engine:

Cornish engine is a type of beam engine that uses three pistons in the mechanism. The cylinder of the first piston is connected to a boiler through a pipe. There is another pipe connected to the same cylinder to take the condensed steme and send it back to the water tank. The second piston-cylinder is connected to the central beam in the same side of the first piston. The purpose of this extra piston is to pump the water back to the Cornish cycle, specifically to the boiler and so, the cycle will start again and again. And the third piston is in the other side of the two first pistons, as you can see in the figure in the next page. That piston can be used in deferent ways, like pumping liquids.

4- Newcomen Engine:

Newcomen beam engine is a steam engine that work similarly to the Cornish engine. So, it uses pistons in both sides the piston in the first side is pushed by the steam and the piston in the other side do the work. But the difference between those two types is that the newcomen beam engine uses the vacuum that is created inside the cylinder to let the atmospheric pressure push the cylinder back to the initial position. This cycle uses a water tank connected to the piston with a valve, so, when the piston reached the maximum position, the valve opens for an instance to let some water enter the cylinder. This water will help the steam to condense faster and make a vacuum. In the same time, the valve of the steam coming from the boiler is closed, so all the steam in the cylinder condense before the valve opens again and the cycle repeat.

In the following figure, you can see how simple is newcomen cycle in comparison with Cornish cycle.

There are many applications of beam engine mechanism that can be used in many sectors in the industry. As we noticed by reading the text before, the main application of the beam engine mechanism is pumping water or liquids in general. We can see beam engine mechanism nowadays in oil ring. Oil pump jack can suck the oil in the underground in high depth. As you can see in the figure, the modern oil pump jack it looks like the six column beam engine. Beam engine mechanism is not only about pumping liquid like water and oil, it is also about creating motion, like individual beam engine in the steam train. All in all, beam engine can convert the rotary motion into linear motion or vice versa, so, in general it can be used in any application that needs to convert rotary motion to linear motion or the opposite.

· Before we start the manufacturing process and the assembly of beam engine mechanism. We will choose the type of the mechanism that we are going to work on and do the prototype of. According to our research about beam engine mechanism and its types, we will choose six column beam engine to be our mechanism that we will continue searching about and how to manufacture it and how to assemble it.

Manufacturing:

As we can notice, the six column beam engine consists from iron, because it needs to handle high temperature values like the temperature of the steam and it needs to have enough strength in order to do work. Also, steam engines use hot steam on piston to make it move back and forth.

Cast iron will be used in making the links that connects the piston with the rotary part. But for the piston, we will need carbon steel because we need some ductility in the piston because of high pressure steam.

Assembly process:

The best way to connect the separate parts of the six column beam engine is to use rotary pins between the links and each other and also between the link and the cylinder. The first step in the assembly of the beam engine is to fix the support beam in the ground. On this support, we will connect the lever beam from the middle using a rotary pin, so it can rotate around its center. After that, connecting two connecting rod in each terminal of the lever using a rotary pin. The connecting link in the first terminal will be connected to the rotary disk, using a rotary pin, that is connected to a shaft, and the connecting link in the other terminal is connected to the piston with a rotary pin.

As we decided before, we choose the six column beam engine to be out design. This prototype contains six parts in it. The parts are the support beam, the lever, two connecting rod, cylinder and rotary disk. As you can see in the figure below, when the rotary disk rotates, the motion will be transferred at the beginning by the connecting rod. Then the connecting rod will transfer the motion to the lever. The lever will revise the direction of the motion and transfer it to the second connecting rod. After that, the second connecting rod will transfer the motion finally to the piston. We know that the piston moves vertically” one access”. Between the second connecting rod and the piston there is a rotary pin that will allow rotary motion to be linear motion with the help of the cylinder.

In this diagram, we can take better view of the mechanism. The first part we can easily see is the rotary wheel. This wheel is connected to the source, which is a shaft delivering rotary motion. In our case, when we make a prototype made of plastic, we can use our hand to rotate the wheel and derive the mechanism. Our design will be much clear and simple and all components will be clear. As you can see in the diagram, the second part we will talk about the cylinder that can move vertically only. The speed of the cylinder going up and down depend on the speed of the wheel. Also, it depends on the length of the lever. We shouldn’t forget that the distance between the center and the connecting pin on the wheel affects the vertical distance that the cylinder moves.

We have choose a relatively simple mechanism with consists of 6 mechanical bars as shown below.

The crank is the name of the mechanical element which rotates using either manually using a handle or automatically using a motor. In kinematic diagrams usually it is represented as a line with 2 end points one is a motor and the other is connection point with the coupler. The motion of the crank is rotation around a fixed joint.

The coupler is the name of the mechanical element which has a paler motion with a non-fixed center of rotation. In kinematic diagrams usually it is represented as a line with 3 end points one is connection point with the crank and the other with a follower.

The Follower is the name of the mechanical element which gives us the interested motion in our case it is osculation. In kinematic diagrams usually it is represented as a complex member with 4 end points one is connection point with the follower and the other with the piston connecting rod and third point in the middle which is the center of rotation.

Piston is a mechanical element usually it has the shape of cylinder which moves inside a cylinder in a transitional motion.

Frame is the most important part in any mechanism because it is used to mount and support the all the mechanism elements.

If this model done in reality we have to use high quality material which handles the high temperature and pressure such as steel and aluminum alloy.

However in our prototype we are going to use wood for fabrication which is enough for delivering the concept of such a mechanism