Patents by Inventor Keith A. Pieper

Keith A. Pieper 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: 4044551
    Abstract: A stagnation sensing control for determining when a gas turbine engine has stagnated during a start phase of operation includes means for sampling the engine speed at a first predetermined point in time and means to hold the sampled speed in memory and further including means operative following a period of time to compare engine speed at the later point in time with the speed in memory and means operative if the speed increase is less than an established amount greater than the sampled speed in memory to produce an engine shutdown signal to operate engine starter and shut down circuits for terminating engine operation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 30, 1976
    Date of Patent: August 30, 1977
    Assignee: General Motors Corporation
    Inventors: Robert E. Nelson, Keith A. Pieper
  • Patent number: 3984701
    Abstract: A circuit for generating a potential indicative of torque. The circuit responds to the phase angle between the AC signals generated by two generating coils or magnetoelectric pickups, each excited by a toothed wheel. The two toothed wheels are connected to different points along a shaft transmitting power between an engine and its load. The windup or torsion of the shaft is proportional to torque; therefore, the relative phase angle of the signals from the two pickups is also proportional to torque. Each generating coil is connected to a high-gain input amplifier which generates a square-wave signal in phase with the signal from the coil. Each input amplifier triggers a pulse generator which generates a pulse the leading edge of which is in fixed phase relation to the pickup signal. The two pulse generator outputs are connected to a flip-flop circuit to generate a zero output signal during the interval between the two inputs to the flip-flop. The duty cycle of this signal is indicative of torque.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 10, 1975
    Date of Patent: October 5, 1976
    Assignee: General Motors Corporation
    Inventor: Keith A. Pieper