Axial-piston engine

Details Axial-piston engine Axial-piston engine

1999-11-12

2001-03-20

Arganbright, Tony M. (Department: 3747)

Internal-combustion engines

Multiple cylinder

Having rotary output shaft parallel to cylinders

C123S056200

Reexamination Certificate

active

06202606

ABSTRACT:

The present invention relates to an axial-piston engine comprising a centrally located output shaft and a plurality of piston-cylinder units oriented parallel to the output shaft and grouped symmetrically about said output shaft, a thrust yoke mounted on said output shaft so as to rotate therewith, said thrust yoke providing support to an tilted cam plate mounted on bearings in a freely rotating manner on the perimeter of said thrust yoke, locking means for preventing the rotation of said tilted cam plate with respect to the body of the engine and ball-jointed piston rods connecting each piston of the engine to said tilted cam plate so as to transmit the sequential thrust of said pistons to said tilted cam plate thus effecting a rotational motion of said output shaft.
Such an axial-piston engine is known from, e.g., DE laid-open publication no. 1,810,808. This prior-art axial-piston engine design has attempted to achieve maximally smooth running in order to minimize the wear of the engine's different parts. To this end, the end surface of the tilted cam plate is provided with a surface which in a running engine can be brought to perform a revolving contact with a countersurface provided on an interior end wall of the engine. While this arrangement achieves efficient stabilization of the tilted cam plate motion and a lower level of vibration in the engine, whereby the wear of the moving parts in the engine is reduced, it is handicapped by uneven wear of the pistons and ball joints that are forced to move over a constant trajectory. To overcome this drawback, said laid-open publication proposes a lubrication system of the piston rod and the tilted cam plate to be implemented by providing the ball-and-socket joint with a lubricant flow channel extending spirally along the spherical surface of the joint and exits obliquely at the piston rod. Such an arrangement aims at causing the exiting lubricant jet to exert some kind of reaction force which accomplishes a rotation of the piston rod. In this way some reduction of wear on the ball joint surfaces will be attained, but the wear due to the movement of the piston along the cylinder wall remains essentially unchanged. Furthermore, the performance of this implementation in practice remains somewhat questionable.
From other types of engines, alternative arrangements are known aiming to provide a cyclic rotational movement of the pistons during the running of the engine in order to reduce and equalize mutual wear between the piston and the cylinder. However, such a forced rotation requires equipping the engine with complex accessories that essentially increase the manufacturing costs of the engine.
It is an object of the present invention to achieve a reduction of wear problems in an axial-piston engine by virtue of a simple arrangement based on providing the skirt of each piston with vanes on which a force is exerted owing to a air vortex generated in the crankcase by the nutating movement of the tilted cam plate every time the piston skirt travels outward from the cylinder bore, thus exerting a certain degree of axial rotation of the piston. Such a rotation of the piston can be effected based on the fact that during the running of the engine, a strong air stream is generated flowing along the interior wall of the crankcase with a higher tangential velocity as compared to the air stream velocity in the center of the crankcase.
Other characterizing specifications of the invention will be evident from the annexed dependent claims.


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patent: 0 225 834 A1 (1987-06-01), None
patent: 1 304 180 (1973-01-01), None

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