Gate Valve Project

  • Summary

    As part of a small team, I designed and produced a prototype of a valve which opened and closed based on soil moisture readings.

  • Skills

    CAD (SolidWorks); Engineering drawings

  • Team Size

    4 (myself and three peers)

  • Category

    Coursework: Engineering Design (EG 10117)

  • Detailed Breakdown

    For the final project in this course, our class was tasked with designing a valve for the Office of Sustainability at Notre Dame. The purpose of the valve was to control a water tank’s flow and to activate in response to readings of soil moisture levels.

    Each team was given standardized dimension requirements pertaining to the valve’s design. These included the width between the base’s screw holes and the spacing of the gear teeth.

    My team and I brainstormed various implementations of different valve types, including screw, iris, butterfly, ball, and gate valves designs. The group concluded that the gate valve was the best option due to its simplicity, reliability, and waste-minimizing design. We used a sliding rack and pinion design to align and misalign the opening in the gate with the flow of water (i.e. “open” and “close” the valve).

    Together, we went through several design iterations and rounds of testing to minimize leaks and optimize usage of print material. The final design is shown below.

    • Drawings of the final design of the gate valve. The model of the main body as shown is half of the main body; this part was printed twice, as two identical halves. The sliding rack is enclosed between them.


    Our valve was among the best performing in the entire section, leaking only 6.3 mL of the 1000 mL passed through it. The mean leakage value in the class was 26.11 mL.