ACCUFLATE

Details ACCUFLATE ACCUFLATE

2001-01-25

2004-03-30

Lefkowitz, Edward (Department: 2855)

Measuring and testing

Fluid pressure gauge

With pressure and/or temperature compensation

C073S700000, C073S146000, C340S442000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06711955

ABSTRACT:

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
The ACCUFLATE device has been developed for the purpose of accurately inflating tires at any operational temperature as the standard for tire inflation is that the tire be in the cold state, which is the ambient air temperature. The ACCUFLATE allows “HOT-TIRE INFLATION” which means the operators would not have to wait for the tire to cool to properly inflate to the recommended pressure setting. There is no cross-reference as there are no other known efforts within the industry at this time for “HOT-TIRE INFLATION”.
FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT
The ACCUFLATE device has not been federally sponsored in any way.
REFERENCE TO MICROFICHE APPENDIX
There is no microfiche appendix.
BACKGROUND OF ACCUFLATE
We distrubute new aircraft tires and retread aircraft tires for the commuter and regional airline fleets in the United States and in many countries around the world. One of the problems that the airline operators have faced is the proper servicing of the tires.
The airline tires, which for the most part are tubeless, do not retain air pressure well as a five percent loss of pressure in a twenty-four hour period is acceptable. While this loss of pressure is acceptable it is also an industry standard that the airline not operate a tire more than five percent below the operating pressure. This means that the airline must inspect and service these tires every twenty-four hours.
This inspection and servicing has become complicated as the requirements for this inspection are based upon the tire being cold. The industry definition of cold is that the tire has not been used for at least two hours. With the present day operation of the airlines many of the aircraft remain overnight at out-stations where there is no maintenance service available so there is no means of servicing the tires before the first flight of the day while the tires are cold. The aircraft then will make an average of nine to eleven landings during the day with an average of thirty minutes on the ground prior to the next take-off. This means that there is no opportunity during the operational day to service the tires to the specified cold pressure setting.
Aircraft tires generate a great deal of heat during landing and taxi. As the heat increases, the pressure of the tire increases, and in turn, as the tire cools, the pressure decreases until the temperature of the tire is the same as the ambient, or outside air temperature. This cooling period is approximately two hours. The problem is that many of the operators did not have service capability before the first flight while the tires were cold, and then during the day, do not have the time between flights to allow the tires to cool two hours so as to be able to service the tires to the specification, which is inflation to ambient temperature.
The new generation of Regional Airline Jets operate tires that are quite dependent on proper inflation. With this in mind, we developed “ACCUFLATE” so the airline operators could inspect and service their tires at any time during the day as the “ACCUFLATE” reads the tire pressure, tire temperature, outside air temperature, then processes this information to determine the exact pressure for inflation so that the serviced pressure would be the same as if the tire was cold.
THE “ACCUFLATE” allows the operators to inflate their tires at any time, regardless of tire temperature, to the cold pressure specification.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF ACCUFLATE
The new generation of Regional Airline Jets operate tires that are quite dependent of proper inflation and have little tolerance to low pressure operation. Given the time restraints the airlines face the ACCUFLATE device would allow them the opportunity to service these tires properly as ACCUFLATE has the capability to service these tires, while at any temperature, to the cold pressure setting. This servicing, as allowed by ACCUFLATE, would greatly improve the reliability of these tires as well as improve the performance levels now offered by these tires.
The net result would be that the flying public would be on aircraft with properly inflated tires which means that the chance of a tire failure would be greatly reduced thereby greatly improving the reliability of these aircraft.


REFERENCES:
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patent: 5158122 (1992-10-01), Moffett
patent: 5875413 (1999-02-01), Vinci
patent: 5913241 (1999-06-01), Ohashi et al.
patent: 6025777 (2000-02-01), Fuller et al.
patent: 6034596 (2000-03-01), Smith et al.
patent: 6293297 (2001-09-01), Maldonado et al.
patent: 6304610 (2001-10-01), Monson

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