Motor vehicles – Power – With means to guide and/or control air for power plant cooling
Reexamination Certificate
2002-04-26
2004-05-25
Johnson, Brian L. (Department: 3618)
Motor vehicles
Power
With means to guide and/or control air for power plant cooling
C180S903000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06739419
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND
This invention relates to a cooling system for a mobile vehicle that may operate without the use of a fan. Specifically, the fan-less cooling system will provide cooling to engine coolant coils by releasing high-pressure air to expand around the outside of the tubing for engine coolant. The expansion of the pressurized air will chill the air. The air will absorb heat from the engine coolant in the tubing. A fan may be used to accelerate the expansion however no fan is required. The fan-less cooling system does not need to be installed at the front of the mobile vehicle as ram air from vehicle movement will not be necessary to provide driving force for the gas expansion.
PRIOR ART
Vehicles have traditionally drawn cooling air or ram air from a location towards the front of a vehicle. The vehicle's movement along the road provides the force to drive air across cooling coils of the engine or other vehicle heat exchangers such as interior air conditioning or transmission oil coolers. Obviously, vehicle movement was required to achieve cooling without a fan. Fans directly engaged to the vehicle engine provided the force to move air across the cooling coils in low vehicle movement conditions. The need for higher under-hood cooling capacity along with ever decreasing space under the hood space has led the designers to look for remotely locating a part of the under-hood cooling system. An example can be a condenser unit along with a cooling fan used for HVAC system. Typically a cooling system consists of a fan and heat exchangers and thus requires a steady source of quality air. This requirement of air (free of debris etc) along with a rotating fan has limited the remote location to very few places. A vehicle cooling system is needed that does not require to be mounted in a location on a forward end of the vehicle to acquire ram air and does not require a fan and hence this is a primary objective of this invention.
SUMMARY
The cooling system and vehicle of this invention satisfy the primary objective of this invention as follows. The cooling system consists of three essential parts. These are a compressed air reservoir, heat exchanger (for example a condenser) and a duct connecting the reservoir and the heat exchanger. On demand, the compressed air will be released to the duct and will expand (as the end connected to the reservoir is expected to be lower in cross-sectional area compared to the end connected to the face of the heat exchanger). This expansion will lead to the reduction in air temperature. This helps in increasing the heat rejection capacity of the cooling system. The colder air passes through the heat exchanger and carries away the heat. This air exits from the other end of the heat exchanger into the environment. A fan is optional to operate behind the heat exchanger to help draw the air though it. The compressed air may originate in the vehicle air system for operating air brakes found on medium and heavy-duty trucks or the compressed air may originate from a separate air compressor. The system may be located in various locations on the vehicle due to the lack of reliance on ram air caused from vehicle movement.
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Beigel David J.
Jain Sunil K.
Nobel Tim P.
Wooldridge Scott A.
Avery Bridget
Calfa Jeffrey P.
International Truck Intellectual Property Company, LLC
Johnson Brian L.
Lukasik Susan L.
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