Patents Examined by Kevin A Lathers
  • Patent number: 10914270
    Abstract: A motor vehicle includes a liquid container for receiving an operating liquid, a cooling circuit for cooling a drive motor of the motor vehicle via a cooling liquid circulating in the cooling circuit, at least one heating coil arranged in the liquid container, the heating coil being operatively attached to the cooling circuit so that the cooling liquid is to flow through the heating coil and thereby heat the operating liquid, and a connection line operatively attached to the cooling circuit to thereby form a secondary circuit through which the cooling liquid is to flow, wherein the heating coil is arranged in the secondary circuit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 18, 2019
    Date of Patent: February 9, 2021
    Assignee: MAGNA Energy Storage Systems GesmbH
    Inventors: Joerg Gross, Kai Marek, Bernd Kahler
  • Patent number: 10907581
    Abstract: An internal combustion engine (10) fitted with a carburetor (40) is provided with a fire-resistant cover member (62) having a front wall (65A) facing an air inlet port (44) of the carburetor, and a breather tube (60) having an inlet end (60A) connected to a crank chamber (28) of the internal combustion engine main body, and an outlet end (60B) supported by the cover member at a position located between the front wall and the carburetor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 30, 2020
    Date of Patent: February 2, 2021
    Assignee: Honda Motor Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Atsushi Moroi, Yuki Hase
  • Patent number: 10900413
    Abstract: An internal combustion engine including at least two cylinders with parallel longitudinal axes, each cylinder including an opening and a piston capable of moving in translation inside the cylinder, the respective openings of the cylinders facing each other, the pistons being in kinematic relation with a connecting rod-crank mechanism including: a spacer connecting the pistons, suitable for maintaining a fixed spacing between the pistons, the pistons being respectively attached to the arms of the spacer, a crankshaft rotating about an axis, arranged between the openings of the cylinders and between the longitudinal axes of the cylinders, the crankshaft comprising a crank pin, a rocker rotating about the crank pin, at least one connecting rod including a first, small end, rigidly attached to the spacer and a second, big end, rigidly attached to one of the ends of the rocker.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 23, 2017
    Date of Patent: January 26, 2021
    Inventor: Jean Eugène Pons
  • Patent number: 10900557
    Abstract: An assembly includes a valve integration unit attached to a transmission oil heater. The valve integration unit includes a valve mechanism and a housing having first to sixth fluid ports for oil input and output. The interior space of the housing has three portions, including a second portion defining a valve chamber and a third portion defining a bypass flow passage between the first and second portions. The valve mechanism has a temperature responsive actuator and first, second and third valve members. The movement of the first and second valve members is actuated by the temperature responsive actuator. The third valve member and the third valve opening are located in the second portion of the interior space. The third valve member is actuatable in response to a pressure differential between the first and second portions of the interior space.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 13, 2018
    Date of Patent: January 26, 2021
    Assignee: Dana Canada Corporation
    Inventors: Anis Muhammad, Silvio Tonellato
  • Patent number: 10890137
    Abstract: An internal combustion engine includes a crankshaft that is rotatably supported on a crankcase via a pair of bearings and has a crank housed in a crank chamber, a to-be-detected body that is housed in the crank chamber and is supported on the crankshaft, and a detection sensor that is made to face a trajectory of the to-be-detected body and detects movement of the to-be-detected body to generate a pulse signal. The to-be-detected body is disposed on an inner side of the bearing. Thus, an internal combustion engine is provided that enables a crank angle to be detected in a state in which vibration and flexure occurring in a crankshaft are suppressed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 15, 2018
    Date of Patent: January 12, 2021
    Assignee: HONDA MOTOR CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Takao Iwasaki, Yoshiyuki Ikebe, Kazuyuki Kosei, Takuya Warashina, Kazuya Tanabe, Hiroyuki Uchida
  • Patent number: 10890088
    Abstract: An intake manifold 10 includes: a surge tank 11 that is connected on an upstream side thereof to a throttle valve 13; multiple branch pipes 12 that are arranged side by side in a longitudinal direction of the surge tank 11 and respectively connected to cylinders; and a PCV chamber 15 that is provided upstream of a central part in the longitudinal direction of the surge tank 11. The intake manifold includes: a blowby gas introduction port 16g that is designed to introduce blowby gas into the PCV chamber 15; and a blowby gas exhaust port 16f that is designed to discharge the blowby gas from the PCV chamber 15 into the surge tank 11, and the blowby gas exhaust port 16f is located at a position higher than the blowby gas introduction port 16g.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 7, 2019
    Date of Patent: January 12, 2021
    Assignee: HONDA MOTOR CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Masatatsu Enami, Takeshi Honda, Yasushi Matsuura, Mikio Hara
  • Patent number: 10890102
    Abstract: A cooling apparatus of an internal combustion engine according to the invention controls an activation of a flow rate changing valve such that a block water flow rate proportion when an engine output is relatively large in a range of the engine output equal to or larger than a predetermine engine output, is larger than the block water flow rate proportion when the engine output is relatively small in the range of the engine output equal to or larger than a predetermine engine output.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 27, 2018
    Date of Patent: January 12, 2021
    Assignee: Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Yoshiharu Hirata, Yuji Miyoshi, Tomohiro Shinagawa, Hiroyuki Sugihara
  • Patent number: 10876493
    Abstract: A cylinder structure includes cylinders arranged inline. A cooling channel facing a first side wall of the cylinder structure includes a first inner channel and a first outer channel. The first inner channel is arranged for a first cooling medium to flow through. The first outer channel is away from the first side wall than the first inner channel is, and arranged for a second cooling medium to flow through. A cooling channel facing a second side wall of the cylinder structure includes a second outer channel and a second inner channel. An upstream part of the second outer channel is connected to a downstream part of the first outer channel. The second inner channel is close to the second side wall than the second outer channel is. Connection channels connecting between the second outer channel and the second inner channel are respectively provided at positions facing the cylinders.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 9, 2019
    Date of Patent: December 29, 2020
    Assignee: TOYOTA JIDOSHA KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventor: Hiroshi Tada
  • Patent number: 10876473
    Abstract: The invention relates to an actuator which has a drive motor, a gearing positioned downstream of the drive motor in terms of drive and arranged coaxially with respect to the drive motor, and which has an output element. The actuator is characterized in that the entire actuator can be coupled as a fully assembled and functional structural unit to a system to be driven by means of the actuator, which system has a drive shaft, wherein a rotationally rigid connection of the output element to the drive shaft can be produced without the need for parts of the actuator to be dismounted for this purpose.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 1, 2016
    Date of Patent: December 29, 2020
    Assignee: OVALO GmbH
    Inventor: Siegmar Gilges
  • Patent number: 10865706
    Abstract: A spherical linear two stroke engine (SLE) is shown and described. SLE is an opposed piston two stroke (OP2S), free piston engine with controlled power shaft. SLE is scalable, light in weight, small in packaging volume, has few parts and high power density. The SLE is also efficient, environmentally friendly and has many different applications.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 9, 2019
    Date of Patent: December 15, 2020
    Inventors: Steven F Lowe, Cliff Carlson
  • Patent number: 10865667
    Abstract: An internal combustion engine includes: intake and exhaust ports; an intake valve including an intake valve shaft and an intake valve head; and an exhaust valve including an exhaust valve shaft and an exhaust valve head. The surface of the intake valve includes an intake-valve-head front surface exposed in a combustion chamber when the intake valve is closed and an intake-valve-head back surface exposed in the intake port when the intake valve is closed. The surface of the exhaust valve includes an exhaust-valve-head front surface exposed in the combustion chamber when the exhaust valve is closed and an exhaust-valve-head back surface exposed in the exhaust port when the exhaust valve is closed. The arithmetic mean roughness of the whole exhaust-valve-head back surface is greater than the arithmetic mean roughness of each of the whole intake-valve-head front surface, the whole intake-valve-head back surface and the whole exhaust-valve-head front surface.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 17, 2019
    Date of Patent: December 15, 2020
    Assignee: TOYOTA JIDOSHA KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventor: Manabu Tateno
  • Patent number: 10859032
    Abstract: A method for manufacturing a cylinder head includes: preparing a cylinder head casting having an intake passage, an exhaust passage, and a combustion chamber by casting using a mold and a plurality of cores; machining an intake port, an intake valve seat, an intake valve guide bore, an exhaust port, an exhaust valve seat, and an exhaust valve guide bore in the cylinder head casting by a first cylindrical tool; and forming a tapered surface on a portion of edge of the intake port by a second cylindrical tool. In particular, the second cylindrical tool moves along a predetermined trajectory at the edge portion of the intake port and rotates around an axis simultaneously to machine the tapered surface.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 4, 2018
    Date of Patent: December 8, 2020
    Assignees: HYUNDAI MOTOR COMPANY, KIA MOTORS CORPORATION
    Inventor: Oh Young Song
  • Patent number: 10844781
    Abstract: A method for operating an internal combustion engine using a gas mixture that is supplied to the fossil fuel in the engine combustion chamber in addition to the combustion air and is produced by the electrolysis of water includes measuring a quantity of air drawn into the intake tract of the engine in accordance with a particular engine operating mode. The method further includes directly supplying, to the combustion air per unit of volume of combustion air, a same, limited quantity of Brown's gas that acts as an additive, that is produced by means of an electrolyzer operated using a pulsating current, and that contains energy-enriched, gaseous water molecules. The percentage of the gas molecules present in the fuel during the combustion process is limited.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 28, 2016
    Date of Patent: November 24, 2020
    Assignee: HMT HYDROMOTIVE GMBH
    Inventors: Rainer Manthei, Marcus Schneider, Gerhard Goebel, Gyoergy Toth
  • Patent number: 10844783
    Abstract: The invention relates to a generator set, in particular a generator set of a hybrid vehicle, with a two-cylinder piston engine (1), which has a crankshaft housing (10), in which two counter-rotating crankshafts (11, 12) are arranged, which are connected by means of piston rods (13) to pistons (18, 19), which are guided inside two cylinders (21, 22) in a tandem arrangement, wherein at least one crankshaft (11, 12) is drivingly connected to a generator (41, 42), and wherein the piston engine (1) comprises a cylinder head (20), which is connected to the crankshaft housing (10), wherein the piston engine (1) has a lower-mounted camshaft (30), and the cylinder head (20) can be connected to the crankshaft housing (10) in at least two positions, in particular positions rotated through 180° relative to each other. Furthermore, the invention relates to a vehicle with such a generator set.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 6, 2017
    Date of Patent: November 24, 2020
    Assignee: OBRIST TECHNOLOGIES GMBH
    Inventor: Frank Obrist
  • Patent number: 10837332
    Abstract: An oil separator unit including an upstream member having an opening through which the blowby gas passes, a downstream member having a hit portion hit by the blowby gas, and a porous member trapping the oil mist contained in the blowby gas that has passed through the through hole. The upstream member includes and a spacer projected from an upstream surface facing a first surface of the porous member to support the first surface, the downstream member includes a rib projected from a downstream surface facing a second surface of the porous member to support the second surface, and the spacer is extended along a first direction and the rib is extended along a second direction substantially perpendicular to the first direction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 9, 2019
    Date of Patent: November 17, 2020
    Assignee: Honda Motor Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Kazushi Tada
  • Patent number: 10837378
    Abstract: Various methods and systems are provided for a multi-fuel capable engine. The system includes a liquid fuel system to deliver liquid fuel to an engine, a gaseous fuel system to deliver gaseous fuel to the engine, and a control system. The control system, during a gaseous fuel system test mode, controls the liquid fuel system and the gaseous fuel system to deliver the liquid fuel and the gaseous fuel to the engine over a range of engine operating points, and indicate degradation of the gaseous fuel system based on engine output at each of the engine operating points.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 22, 2017
    Date of Patent: November 17, 2020
    Assignee: TRANSPORTATION IP HOLDINGS, LLC
    Inventor: Kevin Michael Fisher
  • Patent number: 10830160
    Abstract: A device for controlling the compression rate of a variable compression ratio engine comprises: an actuating cylinder comprising a piston defining two chambers for receiving a pressure fluid, a pressure accumulator supplying the pressure fluid, a first fluid circuit connecting the upper chamber to the accumulator and comprising a first valve assembly for controlling the flow of the fluid in the first fluid circuit, and a second fluid circuit connecting the lower chamber to the accumulator and comprising a second valve assembly for controlling the flow of a fluid in the second fluid circuit. At least one of the fluid circuits comprises a bypass conduit arranged so as to connect one of the chambers to the accumulator. The bypass conduit comprises a non-return valve.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 28, 2018
    Date of Patent: November 10, 2020
    Assignee: MCE 5 Development
    Inventors: Sylvain Bigot, Benjamin Teyssier, François Besson
  • Patent number: 10823099
    Abstract: A controller associated with an engine monitoring system may determine a voltage value concerning at least one supercapacitor associated with the engine monitoring system. The controller may selectively cause, based on determining whether the voltage value satisfies a voltage value threshold, the at least one supercapacitor, or a battery associated with the engine monitoring system, to provide electrical power to a sensor system associated with the engine monitoring system. The controller may obtain, from the sensor system, vibration information relating to an engine associated with the engine monitoring system and pressure information relating to a crankcase of the engine. The controller may determine, based on the vibration information and the pressure information, engine speed information related to the engine and may send the engine speed information to a monitoring device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 23, 2019
    Date of Patent: November 3, 2020
    Assignee: Caterpillar Inc.
    Inventors: James Hall, Ahmed Syed
  • Patent number: 10815909
    Abstract: A method for varying a compression ratio ? of an operating applied-ignition internal combustion engine having at least two cylinders and having a crank mechanism (1) comprising a crankshaft (2) which is mounted in a crankcase and which rotates at a crankshaft rotational speed ?crankshaft, is described. The method includes increasing an expansion phase of a cylinder cycle via rotation of the eccentric bushing (4).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 11, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 27, 2020
    Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC
    Inventors: Martin Wirth, Maziar Khosravi, Bernd Steiner, Jens Dunstheimer
  • Patent number: 10801463
    Abstract: An internal combustion engine includes an anisotropic thermal conductivity member (37, 51) provided on a wall surface defining a cylinder or a wall surface of a cooling water passage on a side of the cylinder, a thermal conductivity of the anisotropic thermal conductivity member in an axial direction of the cylinder being higher than a thermal conductivity of the anisotropic thermal conductivity member in a radial direction of the cylinder, and a thermally insulating member (38. 52) provided on an outer surface of the anisotropic thermal conductivity member with respect to the radial direction of the cylinder.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 25, 2019
    Date of Patent: October 13, 2020
    Assignee: Honda Motor Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Satoshi Yamamura, Mitsuru Sugimoto, Noriyuki Takegata, Hisao Uozumi, Makoto Yamazaki