EXHAUST MANIFOLD MADE OF HEAT-RESISTANT CAST STEEL
An exhaust manifold made of heat-resistant cast steel comprising pluralities of flanges each having a hole connected to each exhaust port of a cylinder head of an engine with bolts, pluralities of ports connected to the flanges, and a convergence portion in which the ports are converging, the thickness of the flanges being 80-150% of that of the ports.
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The present invention relates to an exhaust manifold made of heat-resistant cast steel, which can be produced with a small number of steps at a high yield, and has small weight and excellent thermal deformation resistance.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONThe exhaust manifold for gathering an exhaust gas from an engine and sending it to an exhaust pipe comprises pluralities of flanges each having a hole connected to each exhaust port of a cylinder head of an engine with bolts, a port connected to each flange, and a convergence portion in which pluralities of ports are converging. To prevent the thermal deformation of flanges by a high-temperature exhaust gas, the flanges are generally thicker than the ports in the exhaust manifold (
As automobile engines are recently required to have increasingly higher performance and fuel efficiency, an exhaust gas temperature has been elevating. To secure high-temperature strength and oxidation resistance at 900° C. or higher, the exhaust manifold is made of heat-resistant cast steel. However, voids are likely to generate because the cast steel suffers large solidification shrinkage during casting. To cope with this problem, each flange is provided with a riser 6 as shown in
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide an exhaust manifold made of heat-resistant cast steel, which can be produced with a small number of steps at a high yield, and has small weight and excellent thermal deformation resistance.
DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTIONThe exhaust manifold of the present invention made of heat-resistant cast steel comprises pluralities of flanges each having a hole connected to each exhaust port of a cylinder head of an engine with bolts, pluralities of ports connected to the flanges, and a convergence portion in which the ports are converging, the thickness of the flanges being 80-150% of that of the ports.
Hole-surrounding portions are preferably 110-300% as thick as the flanges.
The exhaust manifold preferably has a ridge extending along each port from the convergence portion. The thickness of the ridges is 70-140% of that of the ports.
In the present invention, the thickness of flanges, ports and bolthole-surrounding portions is expressed by an average value. The bolthole-surrounding portion in the flange has a thickness t3 as shown in
As shown in
Because the thickness of the surrounding portions 5 of the boltholes 4 is 110-300% of that of the flanges 2, the flanges 2 are not easily thermally deformed even if the exhaust manifold is exposed to a high-temperature exhaust gas. Thus, an exhaust gas is prevented from flowing out through gaps between the exhaust ports of a cylinder head and the flanges 2 of the exhaust manifold. When the surrounding portions 5 of the boltholes 4 are less than 110% as thick as the flanges 2, the flanges 2 are easily thermally deformed by a high-temperature exhaust gas. When it exceeds 300%, voids are likely generated in the flanges 2 during casting.
When an ridge 11 extends along each port 3 from the convergence portion 8 to each flange 2 as shown in
To have small weight and excellent thermal deformation resistance, the heat-resistant-cast-steel-made exhaust manifold of the present invention is preferably made of, for instance, heat-resistant, austenitic cast steel comprising by mass 0.2-1.0% of C, 0.05-0.6% of (C—Nb/8), 2% or less of Si, 2% or less of Mn, 8-20% of Ni, 15-30% of Cr, 0.5-6.0% of Nb, 1-6% of W, 0.01-0.3% of N, and 0.01-0.5% of S, the balance being Fe and inevitable impurities.
The present invention will be explained in more detail referring to Examples below without intention of restricting the scope of the present invention.
EXAMPLES 1-14 AND COMPARATIVE EXAMPLES 1-3Exhaust manifolds shown in
With respect to each exhaust manifold, a yield (number of steps), and the thermal deformation of the flanges during use were evaluated as follows: The results are shown in Table 1.
(1) Evaluation of Yield (Number of Steps)
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- Good: Good casting free from voids was conducted without providing a riser to each flange 2.
- Poor: Good casting could not be conducted without providing a riser to each flange 2. Because the risers were used, they had to be cut after casting.
(2) Each exhaust manifold was connected to exhaust ports of a cylinder head of a usual engine, to evaluate the thermal deformation of flanges when the engine was operated.
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- Excellent: Thermal deformation did not occur in both of the ports 3 and the flanges 2.
- Good: Thermal deformation did not occur in the flanges 2, causing no leak of an exhaust gas.
- Fair: Thermal deformation occurred slightly in the flanges 2, but there was no leak of an exhaust gas.
- Poor: Thermal deformation occurred in the flanges 2, causing the leak of an exhaust gas.
As is clear from Table 1, the exhaust manifolds of the present invention having flanges 80-150% as thick as ports were produced free from voids without providing risers, and suffered only small thermal deformation during use. Examples 1, 2 and 4-8, in which the bolthole-surrounding portions were 110-300% as thick as the flanges, suffered small thermal deformation. The exhaust manifolds of Examples 9-14 each having ridges extending along the ports from the convergence portion suffered smaller thermal deformation.
EFFECT OF THE INVENTIONThe exhaust manifold of the present invention made of heat-resistant cast steel and having the above structure, which has small weight and excellent thermal deformation resistance, can be efficiently produced with a small number of steps.
Claims
1. An exhaust manifold made of heat-resistant cast steel comprising pluralities of flanges each having a hole connected to each exhaust port of a cylinder head of an engine with bolts, pluralities of ports connected to said flanges, and a convergence portion in which said ports are converging, the thickness of said flanges being 80-150% of that of said ports.
2. The exhaust manifold made of heat-resistant cast steel according to claim 1, wherein hole-surrounding portions are 110-300% as thick as said flanges.
3. The exhaust manifold made of heat-resistant cast steel according to claim 1, which has a ridge extending along each port from said convergence portion.
4. The exhaust manifold made of heat-resistant cast steel according to claim 3, wherein the thickness of said ridges is 70-140% of that of said ports.
5. The exhaust manifold made of heat-resistant cast steel according to claim 2, which has a ridge extending along each port from said convergence portion.
Type: Application
Filed: Feb 19, 2007
Publication Date: Mar 12, 2009
Applicant: HITACHI METALS, LTD. (Minato-ku, Tokyo)
Inventors: Hirofumi Kimura (Tochigi-ken), Tomomi Souda (Fukuoka-ken), Masanao Suzuki (Fukuoka-ken)
Application Number: 12/279,482
International Classification: F01N 7/10 (20060101);