Imperforate bowl: centrifugal separators – Rotatable bowl – Driven by energy of material supplied
Patent
1996-04-12
1998-05-26
Cooley, Charles E.
Imperforate bowl: centrifugal separators
Rotatable bowl
Driven by energy of material supplied
494901, 2103601, B04B 906
Patent
active
057556571
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention concerns lubricating oil cleaning assemblies for engines particularly internal combustion engines. Servicing engines and particularly car and truck engines is a labour-intensive operation which needs to be done rapidly so disposable oil-cleaning units need to be used wherever possible.
Conventionally, oil is filtered by interposing a "full flow" filter medium, typically paper, in the path of all of the oil flow delivered by the engine lubricating oil pump. Centrifugal separators, which are now in more common use than was previously the case, act essentially as by-pass oil cleaning devices, because they usually treat only part of the oil flow from the pump, typically up to about 10% of the total, prior to returning the treated oil direct to the sump.
Full flow filter elements designed to remove fine contaminants through the use of very fine filter media pores do tend to become clogged and their performance deteriorates with time. However, centrifugal separators do not utilise filter media and their performance remains virtually constant with time.
Although disposable centrifugal separators have been proposed, they have been of the spin-on type which depends from a mounting in the same way as disposable full flow filters. However, because centrifugal separators normally drain by gravity to the sump, a second pipe connection at their lower end has had to be provided which is a serious drawback.
In some preferred arrangements, the centrifugal separator itself is not disposable but the rotor is. This is because a disposable rotor should preferably be non-disassemblable and tamper-proof, which helps prevent ingress of dirt during maintenance.
One example of a centrifugal separator is found in patent No GB 2,160,796B in which there is provided an oil cleaning assembly for an engine, comprising a centrifugal separator unit and a filter unit which each have a casing releasably connected at one end to a mounting means in such a way that the casings may be independently removed from the mounting means, and which both have an oil inlet and an oil outlet at said end, the centrifugal separator unit being arranged to extend substantially vertically upwards from the mounting means and being of the kind in which oil to be treated is introduced into the interior of a substantially closed rotor under pressure and leaves the rotor through a pair of nozzles disposed such that the reaction force from the oil discharged causes the rotor to spin about a substantially vertical axis. The mounting means also provides a common oil supply passage for the separator unit and filter unit, whereby oil flows in parallel through both the separator unit and the filter unit at all times when oil flows through said passage, a drain passage for draining oil from the separator unit to the engine sump and a discharge passage from the filter unit for supplying oil to the engine lubrication system. The rotor is driven only by the oil flow through the nozzles and not by any external drive means.
In the arrangement just described, the rotor base immediately above the nozzles usually includes a separation cone in the form of a frustum of a cone whose base is downwardly directed and attached at its periphery to the inner wall of the rotor at or adjacent the base thereof and whose upper rim or apex is spaced apart from a central support tube for the rotor. The separation cone thus partially divides the rotor into two separate, but communicating chambers, one of which is relatively large and constitutes the upper part of the rotor which receives the detritus from the oil. The other, or lower chamber is relatively small, serving primarily to define a space from which the oil escapes via the nozzles. Fluid escapes from the upper chamber by flowing firstly down the rotor wall and then up the surface of the separation cone, to an annular clearance space defined between the apex of the cone and the central support tube. It thereafter passes into the lower chamber, prior to escaping through the nozzles. The size of the apertures
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Cooley Charles E.
The Glacier Metal Company Limited
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