Internal-combustion engines – Charge forming device – Crankcase vapor used with combustible mixture
Patent
1998-08-13
1999-08-31
McMahon, Marguerite
Internal-combustion engines
Charge forming device
Crankcase vapor used with combustible mixture
F01M 1304, B01D 4516
Patent
active
059440015
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to the separation of liquid from gas in high volume gas flows and in particular to a separator for separating the oil from the air in breather gases produced by an internal combustion engine.
Internal combustion engines generally require a breather system to take gas, which escapes from the cylinders into the crankcase region, up through the cylinder block and cylinder head and out through the cover for the cylinder head from where they are fed back into the air intake system for the cylinders. The breather gases generally pass up through oil drainage passages in the engine.
In engines with overhead camshafts the gases pass around the camshafts, which tends to result in significant amounts of oil being mixed with the breather gases which increases the unwanted emissions from the engine.
The presence of oil in breather gases can lead to the fouling of engine inlet ports and can create soot in exhaust gas recirculation systems. As requirements for the control of emissions get increasingly more severe the need to remove oil from breather gases increases.
It is known from GB-A-2,131,484 to provide a Labyrinth separator formed as part of the cover for the cylinder head which relies on many reversals of flow direction to separate the oil from the air have previously been used to separate off the oil in such circumstances. However, such labyrinth separators result in high kinetic energy losses and require a considerable suction to draw the air through the separator.
It is known from DE-A-2,461,113 to use a cyclone-type separation device attached to the engine of a motor vehicle. One or more pipes are used to connect the separator to the engine, the breather gases being arranged to enter a separation chamber of the separation device tangentially and the separated oil collecting in the bottom of the chamber from where it is returned to a sump of the engine by a pump. An oil trap is required with such an arrangement to ensure that air cannot be drawn from the separation chamber by the pump. It is a disadvantage with such a separator that it occupies a considerable volume and thus makes packaging in situations where the engine is to be located in a confined space such as in a motor vehicle more difficult. In addition the need to connect the separator to the engine by pipes increase the complexity of the system from a manufacturing viewpoint.
It is further known fron U.S. Pat. No. 4,702,846 to provide a vortex array to separate a medium into separate components. The array producing a number of vortices rotating in opposite directions.
According to a invention there is provided an internal combustion engine having a cylinder head, a cylinder block, a crankcase, an oil reservoir, one or more camshafts, a cylinder head cover and an oil separator located within the cavity of the cylinder head cover characterised in that the oil separator has two or more interconnected substantially cylindrical chambers connected between a flow inlet and a flow outlet, each chamber having a ceiling defining an upper surface of the chamber, a floor defining a lower surface of the chamber and an entry passage connected to the chamber to produce a vortex within the respective chamber when a liquid and gas mixture is passed therethrough, the arrangement of the entry passages being such that contra-rotating vortices are produced in adjacent chambers of the separator.
There may be three chambers forming a set arranged in series between the flow inlet and the flow outlet, therebeing an inlet chamber, an intermediate chamber and an outlet chamber, the flow in each chamber being contra-rotatating with respect to the flow in adjoining chambers.
There may be two sets of three chambers both sets sharing a common outlet chamber.
The two sets may be arranged with the common outlet chamber in the middle and the two inlet chambers at either end so that breather gases flow inwardly from the flow inlets towards the common outlet chamber and then exits from an outlet connected to the common outlet chamber.
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patent: 5617834 (1997-04-01), Lohr
McMahon Marguerite
Rover Group Limited
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