The Merlin Engine

[Viper2000]

Originally Posted by 41Sqn_Stormcrow

No, CAD is just another tool. The genious is not with tools but to find the sweet point between all the contradicting requirements that offers the best performance and a good dose of luck - says the engineer.

Bah. I do trade studies all the time. That's just maths. It's big and scary if you don't understand it, but if you do then it's just big maths, and tbh at PhD level you actually find is that 99% of what you do is actually computer-assisted* GCSE maths with scary references.

Drawing the blasted thing is a nightmare. I mean, it's a long time since I actually did design drawings by hand, but heck, even just drawing quite simple parts was massively time consuming. Engines have thousands of parts. They all have to fit together, both at the temperature that the beast is assembled at, and at the considerably higher temperature at which it is expected to run. They must not interfere, even under the worst-case combination of temperatures and accelerations.

And of course it has to actually be possible to build the thing. So there has to be a way of assembling it, and there must also be the necessary jigs and tools.

And without CAD, you've got to work all of this stuff out in your head before you even put pencil to paper.

I'm sorry, but Damn.

*Both in the sense that Wolfram Alpha does the mathematics for you, and also in the sense that you tend to use a huge amount of computing power to perform massive number of quite simple but tedious operations for you at high speed. And then, when you discover that you can get a computer to do a week's worth of maths in about a minute, you naturally write enough code to tie the blasted thing up for two weeks, and then swear at it incessantly when it inevitably crashes after 13 days.

[Nitrous]

I used to work in that exact same building as shown in the video about 3 1/2 years ago.
They have just completed the flattening of the whole of Rolls-Royce Main Works at Nightingale Road Derby, only leaving the Marble Hall, at the front as its listed.
In the new factory we still use the same old gear cutting machines as seen in the video, when manufacturing the engines that go on the Airbus aircraft that you all fly on holiday in.

Great Video.

All I can say is By By to the engineering manufacturing in this country thanks to Health & Safety and accident insurance claims.

[ElAurens]

Heads and cylinders cast in unit?

Kind of puts the engine DM of "blown cylinder head gasket" into question, doesn't it?

[617Squadron]

Originally Posted by Nitrous

I used to work in that exact same building as shown in the video about 3 1/2 years ago.
They have just completed the flattening of the whole of Rolls-Royce Main Works at Nightingale Road Derby, only leaving the Marble Hall, at the front as its listed.
In the new factory we still use the same old gear cutting machines as seen in the video, when manufacturing the engines that go on the Airbus aircraft that you all fly on holiday in.

Great Video.

All I can say is By By to the engineering manufacturing in this country thanks to Health & Safety and accident insurance claims.

The gear cutting machines; were they Sunderlands or David Browns? I couldn't quite tell from the video, but my guess is that they were Sunderlands.

The David Brown site at Lockwood, Huddersfield still had some Sunderland gear cutters when I used to visit it once a week back in 2002. They probably still have them now! David Brown could still probably make parts for them, as they still had the drawings.

[maxwellbest]

Yep, no cad back in those days. Rooms full of people drawing to standards of the day. I agree with the statement that CAD is just a tool. (Disclaimer, I am an engineering draftsman). Re those videos, reminds so much of one of my metalwork teachers. Ex RAF, would wear a dustcoat, shirt, tie, vest on underneath. Looked exactly like those guys in the video...Great stuff.

[kimosabi]

Originally Posted by ElAurens

Heads and cylinders cast in unit?

Kind of puts the engine DM of "blown cylinder head gasket" into question, doesn't it?

They are still two piece.

Very cool vid OP, just shows us that the methods are still used today, it's in the design department the real evolution has happened.

[Al Schlageter]

1/4 scale Merlin

http://dynamotive.netfirms.com/merlin/

Speaking of old machinery, the company I worked for back in the late '90s had a WW2 era lathe that was much used. Was used for drilling 3/4" dia holes in 6" dia aluminum round. Some of the holes went all the way through (up to 10" but the piece had to reversed) or tapping blind holes. No automatic reverse, so one had to be quick on the reverse lever. Can't remember it ever breaking down, though the newer lathe did.

[Kongo-Otto]

Originally Posted by Koala63

Just one modern Occupational Health and Safety audit in that factory would ensure the Merlin never got off the drawing board. Those were the days, when Personal Protective Equipment meant a brown dust jacket and a cloth cap.

Maybe the brown dust jacket and the cloth cap where enough, because the workers knew the risk of their Jobs.
And be shure that the average UK Worker from this time had an higher educational standard than many people today.

[kimosabi]

I have a Czech lathe in my workshop, big ass chunk from the 50's, using it on everything from small bolts to 3.5m/2"+ propshafts and it's always smooth sailing. Old as heck but as I've been told, it has never never broke down in the 30+ years they've had it.

[choctaw111]

That really a really great video. Thanks for posting.