Patents by Inventor Orrin A. Woodward

Orrin A. Woodward 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: 5580213
    Abstract: A motor vehicle fuel pump including an electric motor, a high pressure pump, and a low pressure pump having a side channel pumping stage for pumping fuel from a fuel tank to a reservoir and a regenerative turbine pumping stage for pumping fuel from the reservoir to the high pressure pump. A pair of radial vapor ports are disposed between an inside diameter of a pump channel of the turbine pumping stage and an outside diameter of a concentric, radially inboard pump channel of the side channel pumping stage at a discharge port of the pump channel of the side channel pumping stage. Liquid fuel with entrained vapor near the inside diameter of the pump channel of the turbine pumping stage is aspirated through the radial vapor ports into the discharge port of the pump channel of the side channel pumping stage by liquid fuel flowing in the pump channel of the side channel pumping stage.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 13, 1995
    Date of Patent: December 3, 1996
    Assignee: General Motors Corporation
    Inventors: Orrin A. Woodward, Edward A. Hantle, deceased, David E. Harris
  • Patent number: 5509778
    Abstract: An open-vane regenerative turbine pump in an electric fuel pump operating submerged in fuel in a fuel tank of a motor vehicle. The regenerative turbine pump includes an open-vane impeller having paddle-like vanes extending radially out from a ring-shaped body of the impeller, an annular groove in a housing of the pump defining a pump channel around the periphery of the impeller and the vanes, a stripper on the pump housing fitting close around the impeller between an inlet port of the pump channel and a discharge port of the pump channel, a pair of radial vapor ports on opposite sides of the impeller at an inside diameter of the annular pump channel, and a pair of steps on opposite sidewalls of the pump channel sweeping downstream from an outside diameter of the pump channel to the inside diameter thereof at downstream sides of corresponding ones of the radial vapor ports.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 22, 1995
    Date of Patent: April 23, 1996
    Assignee: General Motors Corporation
    Inventors: Edward A. Hantle, deceased, Orrin A. Woodward, David E. Harris, John G. Fischer
  • Patent number: 5391063
    Abstract: A magnet assembly in an electric motor of a motor vehicle fuel pump includes a tubular ferromagnetic flux carrier closely received in a shell of the fuel pump between a pump at one end of the shell and an end housing at the other end, a pair of arc-shaped permanent magnets on the flux carrier having a non-magnetic state as formed and a magnetic state after exposure to magnetic flux, an elongated arc-shaped plastic locator between the magnets, and a spring clip opposite the locator urging the magnets into magnet pockets in the locator. The plastic locator is the same length as the flux carrier and conforms to the curvature thereof. Each magnet pocket has a pair of short lateral sides which capture the magnets in their non-magnetic state and establish the locations thereof relative the ends of the flux carrier.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 25, 1994
    Date of Patent: February 21, 1995
    Assignee: General Motors Corporation
    Inventors: Edward A. Hantle, Orrin A. Woodward
  • Patent number: 5330475
    Abstract: A modular fuel sender including a reservoir in a fuel tank of a motor vehicle, an electric fuel pump in the reservoir, and a jet pump for aspirating fuel into the reservoir. The electric fuel pump includes a regenerative turbine pump having a pump channel around the periphery of an impeller and a bleed orifice between an inlet and a discharge of the pump channel for bleeding a mixture of fuel and vapor from the pump channel. The bleed orifice is connected a nozzle in the jet pump. The mixture of fuel and vapor bled from the pump channel issues as a jet stream from the jet pump nozzle for aspirating fuel into the reservoir.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 29, 1993
    Date of Patent: July 19, 1994
    Assignee: General Motors Corporation
    Inventors: Orrin A. Woodward, Edward A. Hantle, Christopher J. Mahoney