Patents by Inventor Takahiro Tachihara

Takahiro Tachihara 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: 6905327
    Abstract: A method of warming up a fuel evaporator is disclosed. The fuel evaporator 2 comprises: an evaporation chamber 2b equipped with a first injection device 2a for injecting raw fuel liquid onto a heat source 2p, and vaporizing the raw fuel liquid on the heat source; a catalyst combustor 20 having a combustion catalyst 22a, and introducing catalytically burned combustion gas into the heat source; a second injection device 30 for supplying fuel to the catalyst combustor; a combustion gas transferring device 10 equipped with a fuel injection portion 10a and a combustion catalyst 10c, and the fuel injection portion injecting fuel onto the combustion catalyst to generate a catalytically burned gas; a first temperature measurement device T1 for the catalyst combustor; and a second temperature measurement device T2 for the evaporation chamber.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 6, 2001
    Date of Patent: June 14, 2005
    Assignee: Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Takahiro Tachihara, Kiyoshi Kasahara, Satoshi Hanai
  • Patent number: 6899741
    Abstract: A fuel evaporator composed of an evaporation chamber which evaporates a raw liquid fuel by a high temperature thermal medium to provide a raw fuel gas is disclosed. The evaporation chamber comprises a plurality of evaporation chambers serially connected to each other in a ventilation manner, and at least one raw liquid fuel injector for injecting the raw liquid fuel being provided on each of said plurality of evaporation chambers.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 21, 2000
    Date of Patent: May 31, 2005
    Assignee: Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Masahito Nakamura, Naoyuki Abe, Kiyoshi Kasahara, Takahiro Tachihara
  • Patent number: 6887603
    Abstract: A raw fuel vaporizing apparatus comprising: a vaporizer for vaporizing liquid raw fuel; a raw fuel introducing device for introducing the liquid raw fuel into the vaporizer; a catalyst combustor into which fuel and air are supplied for catalytic combustion, the catalyst combustor generating heat in the presence of a catalyst and supplying the resulting heat to the vaporizer to vaporize the liquid raw fuel; a fuel introducing device for introducing the fuel into the catalyst combustor; an air introducing device for introducing the amount of the air suitable for catalytic combustion into the catalyst combustor; a heat transferring gas introducing device introducing heat transferring gas into the catalyst combustor to transfer heat retained by the catalyst combustor to the vaporizer; and a controller increasing the amount of the heat transferring gas through the heat transferring gas introducing device when the amount of vapor generated in the vaporizer is increased.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 14, 2002
    Date of Patent: May 3, 2005
    Assignee: Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Kiyoshi Kasahara, Yuuji Asano, Satoshi Hanai, Takahiro Tachihara
  • Patent number: 6627342
    Abstract: A fuel evaporator 1 is provided in a fuel cell system FCS having an evaporating chamber that evaporates liquid fuel into fuel gas by heat medium gas. The fuel evaporator is provided with a liquid fuel injection apparatus 40 that injects liquid fuel into the evaporating chamber and an injection volume adjusting apparatus 42 that adjusts the injection volume of the liquid fuel injection apparatus. The injection volume adjusting apparatus 42 includes an injection volume adjusting portion that sets the fuel injection volume according to an injection volume target setting signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 17, 2000
    Date of Patent: September 30, 2003
    Assignee: Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Masahito Nakamura, Takahiro Tachihara, Kouji Miyano
  • Patent number: 6617067
    Abstract: In a fuel evaporator provided with an evaporation chamber 11 that produces raw fuel gas FG by vaporizing raw fuel liquid by heat received from a plurality of heat medium tubes 12 through which a high temperature heat medium passes, a raw fuel injection portion that injects raw fuel liquid onto the heat medium tubes 12 is situated in the evaporation chamber 11. The heat medium tubes 12 are arranged sparsely near the raw fuel injection portion and densely away from it. A catalytic combustor 20 is provided adjacent to the bottom surface 11b of the evaporation chamber 11 to form the high temperature heat medium. Such a fuel evaporator efficiently vaporizes raw fuel liquid and can be suitably applied in a fuel cell system for a fuel cell-powered automobile.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 3, 2000
    Date of Patent: September 9, 2003
    Assignee: Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Takahiro Tachihara, Naoyuki Abe, Yuuji Asano, Kiyoshi Kasahara, Shiyuuichi Togasawa, Masahito Nakamura, Kouji Miyano
  • Patent number: 6536748
    Abstract: A fuel evaporator raw fuel injection apparatus 40A includes an evaporator having an evaporating chamber 11 in which raw fuel liquid FL is evaporated by a high temperature heating chamber (heating gas) into raw fuel gas, and which is provided with a first injection portion (fuel injection portion 41A) that injects the raw fuel liquid FL into the evaporating chamber 11, and a second injection portion (air injection portion 42A) that injects gas or liquid (air A) with a prescribed directional property into the raw fuel liquid FL injected from the fist injection portion (fuel injection portion 41A), adequately atomizes and disperses raw fuel liquid and achieves highly efficient evaporation of raw fuel liquid.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 3, 2000
    Date of Patent: March 25, 2003
    Assignee: Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Takahiro Tachihara, Naoyuki Abe, Yuuji Asano
  • Patent number: 6520769
    Abstract: A warm-up apparatus 1 for a fuel evaporator 2 comprises: a catalyst combustor 20 for catalytically burning exhaust gas from a fuel cell 6 to produce combustion gas and supplying the fuel evaporator which evaporates raw fuel liquid with the produced combustion gas as an evaporation heat source; an exhaust gas passage 1a for transferring exhaust gas to the catalyst combustor; and a combustion gas transferring device 10 including a fuel injection portion 10a and a combustion catalyst 10c, and injecting fuel from the fuel injection portion onto the combustion catalyst, where the fuel is catalytically burned to produce combustion gas, and thereafter transferring the produced combustion gas to the catalyst combustor. The combustion gas transferring device is positioned on one side of said exhaust gas passage.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 6, 2001
    Date of Patent: February 18, 2003
    Assignee: Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Takahiro Tachihara, Kouji Miyano, Naoyuki Abe
  • Publication number: 20020170504
    Abstract: A raw fuel vaporizing apparatus comprising: a vaporizer for vaporizing liquid raw fuel; a raw fuel introducing device for introducing the liquid raw fuel into the vaporizer; a catalyst combustor into which fuel and air are supplied for catalytic combustion, the catalyst combustor generating heat in the presence of a catalyst and supplying the resulting heat to the vaporizer to vaporize the liquid raw fuel; a fuel introducing device for introducing the fuel into the catalyst combustor; an air introducing device for introducing the amount of the air suitable for catalytic combustion into the catalyst combustor; a heat transferring gas introducing device introducing heat transferring gas into the catalyst combustor to transfer heat retained by the catalyst combustor to the vaporizer; and a controller increasing the amount of the heat transferring gas through the heat transferring gas introducing device when the amount of vapor generated in the vaporizer is increased.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 14, 2002
    Publication date: November 21, 2002
    Inventors: Kiyoshi Kasahara, Yuuji Asano, Satoshi Hanai, Takahiro Tachihara
  • Patent number: 6472092
    Abstract: A reformer comprises first and second reforming catalyst layers arranged in a reforming chamber, and a supply mechanism for supplying reformable fuel gas, steam, and oxygen to the reforming chamber to simultaneously perform an oxidation reaction and a reforming reaction in the first and second reforming catalyst layers. Each of the first and second reforming catalyst layers is designed to have a hollow plate-shaped configuration with its surface direction perpendicular to a gas flow direction in the reforming chamber. Accordingly, a compact fuel-reforming apparatus having a good thermal efficiency is obtained, in which the start-up operation is smoothly effected.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 11, 1999
    Date of Patent: October 29, 2002
    Assignee: Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Kazuhito Matsuda, Takahiro Tachihara, Hikaru Okada, Shoji Isove, Kouji Ueda, Hideaki Sumi, Takeshi Yamagami, Eiji Iseki, Yasunori Kotani
  • Publication number: 20020081470
    Abstract: In a heat processing system for a fuel cell comprising a catalytic combustor 23 that has supplied and combusts an anode off gas and a cathode off gas discharged from a fuel cell stack 21, a vaporizer 24 that has introduced therein a combustion gas produced in the catalytic combustor 23, heats a raw fuel for a fuel cell by using the heat of the combustion gas to make it a fuel vapor, an off gas heater that heats the anode off gas and the cathode off gas by a combustion gas used in the vaporizer 24, a reformer 25 that reforms the fuel vapor produced by the vaporizer 24 and provides the fuel gas to the fuel cell stack 21, wherein the combustion gas temperature of the catalytic combustor 23 is set based on the required fuel vapor temperature, the flow volume of the cathode off gas is set and adjusted depending on this combustion gas temperature, and the set combustion gas temperature is compensated based on the required fuel vapor temperature and the actual fuel vapor temperature.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 20, 2001
    Publication date: June 27, 2002
    Applicant: HONDA GIKEN KOGYO KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventors: Satoshi Hanai, Takahiro Tachihara, Yuji Asano, Nobuyoshi Yoshida
  • Publication number: 20020056316
    Abstract: A method of warming up a fuel evaporator is disclosed. The fuel evaporator 2 comprises: an evaporation chamber 2b equipped with a first injection device 2a for injecting raw fuel liquid onto a heat source 2p, and vaporizing the raw fuel liquid on the heat source; a catalyst combustor 20 having a combustion catalyst 22a, and introducing catalytically burned combustion gas into the heat source; a second injection device 30 for supplying fuel to the catalyst combustor; a combustion gas transferring device 10 equipped with a fuel injection portion 10a and a combustion catalyst 10c, and the fuel injection portion injecting fuel onto the combustion catalyst to generate a catalytically burned gas; a first temperature measurement device T1 for the catalyst combustor; and a second temperature measurement device T2 for the evaporation chamber.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 6, 2001
    Publication date: May 16, 2002
    Applicant: Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Takahiro Tachihara, Kiyoshi Kasahara, Satoshi Hanai
  • Publication number: 20020004021
    Abstract: A warm-up apparatus 1 for a fuel evaporator 2 comprises: a catalyst combustor 20 for catalytically burning exhaust gas from a fuel cell 6 to produce combustion gas and supplying the fuel evaporator which evaporates raw fuel liquid with the produced combustion gas as an evaporation heat source; an exhaust gas passage 1a for transferring exhaust gas to the catalyst combustor; and a combustion gas transferring device 10 including a fuel injection portion 10a and a combustion catalyst 10c, and injecting fuel from the fuel injection portion onto the combustion catalyst, where the fuel is catalytically burned to produce combustion gas, and thereafter transferring the produced combustion gas to the catalyst combustor. The combustion gas transferring device is positioned on one side of said exhaust gas passage.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 6, 2001
    Publication date: January 10, 2002
    Applicant: Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Takahiro Tachihara, Kouji Miyano, Naoyuki Abe
  • Publication number: 20010014301
    Abstract: A fuel evaporator composed of an evaporation chamber which evaporates a raw liquid fuel by a high temperature thermal medium to provide a raw fuel gas is disclosed. The evaporation chamber comprises a plurality of evaporation chambers serially connected to each other in a ventilation manner, and at least one raw liquid fuel injector for injecting the raw liquid fuel being provided on each of said plurality of evaporation chambers.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 21, 2000
    Publication date: August 16, 2001
    Applicant: HONDA GIKEN KOGYO KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventors: Masahito Nakamura, Naoyuki Abe, Kiyoshi Kasahara, Takahiro Tachihara