Power plants – Internal combustion engine with treatment or handling of... – Methods
Patent
1995-07-27
1998-11-17
Hart, Douglas
Power plants
Internal combustion engine with treatment or handling of...
Methods
60284, 60286, 1231793, F01N 320
Patent
active
058361510
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method and to a device for reducing the emissions of harmful gases produced by an internal combustion engine and, more particularly, to such a method and to such a device which are designed for an engine propelling a motor vehicle and supplying energy to various auxiliaries such as an alternator, an air-conditioning compressor, a pump forming part of a hydraulic suspension device or of a power-assisted steering device, etc.
Such auxiliaries are becoming more numerous in current vehicles, whether in order to improve the comfort of the vehicle or in order to satisfy increasingly strict anti-pollution standards. These auxiliaries are driven by the engine, via belts or chains and thus increase the load on this engine. This increase is particularly damaging during a phase in which the latter is cold-started, at a time when the necessary enrichment in the air/fuel mixture leads to increased pollution by exhaust gases laden particularly with unburnt hydrocarbons, while at the same time the means used to reduce this pollution, such as catalytic converters, are not effective as they have not yet reached a sufficient temperature.
In order to reduce this pollution, it has been proposed to warm up the catalytic converter by electrical heating drawn from the battery of the vehicle and/or to inject air into the exhaust from the engine. However, these measures involve additional consumptions of electrical energy which lead to the battery and the alternator which charges it being made larger, the latter element then consuming increased mechanical energy which the engine has to provide at the cost of a production in exhaust gases which is also increased and which greatly reduces the benefit of these measures.
Document FR-A-2,169,195 also makes known a method for reducing emissions according to which the warming-up of the engine is accelerated by uncoupling the members such as the coolant-circulating pump and/or the fan by means of electromagnetic clutches and by increasing the rotational speed of the engine. However, such a method, although it reduces the engine warming-up time during which the emissions of pollutants are the greatest, increases these emissions owing to the increase in speed.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The object of the present invention is therefore to supply a method and a device making it possible to reduce effectively the production of harmful gases by an internal combustion engine propelling a motor vehicle.
Another object of the present invention is to supply such a method and such a device making it possible to reduce this production particularly during a phase in which the engine is cold-started, so as to ensure compliance with the strictest anti-pollution standards.
These objects of the invention, as well as others which will emerge upon reading the description which follows, are achieved with a method according to which, during a phase in which the engine of the vehicle is warmed up, the operating conditions of at least one auxiliary are modified so as to reduce the mechanical power absorbed by comparison with that absorbed by the auxiliary in normal operation.
By thus reducing the power absorbed by all the auxiliaries normally loading the engine, such as an alternator, an air-compressor, a pump, etc., and which are not absolutely necessary to the starting thereof, the load on the engine is substantially lightened and this in consequence substantially reduces the production of exhaust gases by this engine and, finally, the pollution of the environment by these gases.
According to one strategy in the implementation of the method according to the invention, the reduction in the mechanical power supplied to the auxiliary is stopped when the temperature of a catalytic converter for treating the exhaust gases from the engine and/or the temperature of the engine itself reaches a predetermined value. These temperature conditions determine the moment at which the engine and/or the catalytic converter have reached a
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patent: 4721083 (1988-01-01), Hosaka
patent: 5131293 (1992-07-01), Kaiser et al.
patent: 5265418 (1993-11-01), Smith
patent: 5390493 (1995-02-01), Fujishita
Atanasyan Alain Antranik
Aubourg Alain Michel
Perez Alain Joseph
Greenberg Laurence A.
Hart Douglas
Lerner Herbert L.
Siemens Automotive S.A.
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