Field Trips in College, Woohoo!
This entry was posted on 11/20/2006 9:51 PM and is filed under Engineering.
It is 9:53 pm and I have just returned from touring a Caterpillar
dealer's service and maintenance facility with my Internal Combustion
Engines class, and it gave me a whole new appreciation for heavy
machinery.
The big engines that go on the series 793 mining dump trucks and 611
bulldozers are 16 cylinder affairs (the big trucks have 2 of them) that pack 87
gallons of oil in the crankcase. For anybody not familiar with
passenger vehicle engines, my Chevy V-8 takes 5 quarts. That's
right, in 72.5 oil changes at one per 3000 miles I still have to drive
my truck another 33000 miles (for a total of 217.5k) to equal ONE oil
change of these enormous things.
You can look at the truck at http://www.cat.com/cda/layout?m=37840&x=7 if you are interested.
We got to see one of these engines (the 3500 series) that had a bit of
a problem. A connecting rod had a crack in it (from the factory,
they thought) and it had split, winging its unguided way around the
crankshaft for at least one rotation, thrashing all of the components
in its way (mostly big oil lines), ripping out ~3 sqft of steel from
the bottom of the engine and generally making a big mess.
I also got a hat.
