Construction of low-cost benches to assist in teaching machine elements and small engine testing

Abstract

The teaching practice in technical, technological, and engineering education requires well-structured laboratories with didactic resources that provide the actors in the teaching and learning process with better interaction between the topics covered and the search for a practice. Thus, it is fundamental that lecturing institutions have teaching resources in their laboratories that the lecturers would use to improve their teaching-learning process. A teaching bench is a good option among the previous didactic models. The machine elements didactic benches allow a better explanation and application of the relationships between the various mechanical elements and related several subjects. For this reason, this work aims to build two didactic benches to assist the teaching-learning process under technical and didactic standards for teaching courses and/or related subjects of machine elements and later performance of engine bench tests to ensure its operation. The first didactic bench aims to assist in classes in relevant subjects involving machine elements. It has several components in it, and its characteristics and functionalities can be visualized. It has an electric engine for activation and a Prony brake type that measures the motor's torque and power demands. Additionally, it allows the student to visualize the correlations of the various calculations with practice, such as transmission ratio, torque, and power. The second didactic bench concerns the analysis of internal combustion or electric engines' functionalities, in which several parameters are analyzed, such as speed motor, torque, power, and fuel consumption. The engine bench has a load cell, rotation sensor, and Prony brake type initially adapted to test two engine models (electric and internal combustion). This work was developed using machine design methodology, highlighting the informational, conceptual, preliminary, and detailed design. The didactic bench tests ensured that they could be used in the teaching-learning process for engineering students. Moreover, with the construction of the small engine test bench, it is possible to evaluate internal combustion engine operating parameters, such as power, strength, rotation, and fuel consumption.