Patents by Inventor Brian Scott Ankrapp

Brian Scott Ankrapp has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 6045444
    Abstract: A compact HVAC module housing (30) incorporates a novel temperature valve belt (74) and support frame therefore (60) that fit between an evaporator (56) and heater (58). This allows the entire housing (30) to be very compact, and to be more easily integrated into a vehicle body structural cross beam (32). The temperature valve and its location, as well as a reversed air stream through the heater (58), together allow the mixing area for the cold and not air streams to be well within a minimal space envelope of the housing (30), rather than outside of it.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 28, 1998
    Date of Patent: April 4, 2000
    Assignee: General Motors Corporation
    Inventors: Mark James Zima, Brian Scott Ankrapp, Wayne Oliver Forrest, Richard J. Burnham
  • Patent number: 5879230
    Abstract: An air inlet assembly for the scroll housing of an automotive air conditioning and ventilation system is specially structurally matched to the scroll housing so as to be more compact and efficient. An inlet housing is fashioned coaxial to the scroll housing and blower, within which a coaxial, partially cylindrical door rotates around the central axis so as to open or close one of a pair of diametrically opposed air openings. An annular filter fits within the rotating door. Regardless of which air inlet is open, air that is pulled in by the blower is forced into a radial space between the filter and the door, three hundred and sixty degrees around, and is forced radially through the filter before entering the scroll housing. Because of the coaxial, matching relationship between inlet housing a scroll housing, the entire assembly is very compact and low in profile, as measured along the vertical co axis.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 1, 1998
    Date of Patent: March 9, 1999
    Assignee: General Motors Corporation
    Inventors: Kenneth Lawrence Wardlaw, Brian Scott Ankrapp, Wayne Oliver Forrest