SUPERCHARGING MEANS FOR INTERNAL-COMBUSTION ENGINES

• US 3,676,999 A
• Filed: 08/07/1970
• Issued: 07/18/1972
• Est. Priority Date: 11/11/1968
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Plessey Overseas Limited (Marconi Holdings Company Limited)
• Original Assignee: Thomas Alfred Oldfield
• Inventors: Oldfield, Thomas Alfred
• Primary Examiner(s): Croyle, Carlton R.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Olsen, Warren
• Application Number:
  US05/062,069
• Time in Patent Office: 711 Days
• Field of Search: 60/13 123/119CE
• US Class Current: 60/606
• CPC Class Codes: F02B 37/166 the auxiliary apparatus being a combustion chamber, e.g. upstream of turbine
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 10/12 Improving ICE efficiencies

Abstract

To enable achievement, in an I.C. engine having an exhaustdriven turbo-charger, of a desired booster rate, and thus of a desired overall compression ratio, more particularly at low engine speeds and even at the moment of starting, additional operating gas is made available for the turbo-charger by a bypass from the outlet of the turbo-charger compressor to the inlet of the turbo-charger turbine downstream of the engine and the operation of an auxiliary burner for increasing the supply of driving power to the turbo-charger turbine, utilizing for its combustion such by-pass air and optionally also residual oxygen in the engine exhaust gas, and to further increase the amount for combustion air available in the engine, a dump valve is provided for venting at low engine speeds, the engine exhaust direct to atmosphere while isolating it from the gas flowing from the turbo-charger compressor via the auxiliary burner to the turbo charger turbine.

Claims

1. An arrangement for increasing the mass of combustion air supplied per revolution to an internal-combustion engine having an inlet and an exhaust, more particularly to a Diesel engine as hereinabove defined, which comprises in combination:

(a) a turbocharger including a turbine so arranged as to be normally driven by exhaust gas from the exhaust of each engine and further including a dynamic compressor driven by said turbine for supplying charging air under pressure to the inlet of said engine;

(b) a branch duct leading from a point between said compressor and said inlet to a junction point between said exhaust and said turbine and including a combustion chamber equipped with fuel-injection and ignition means, the connection from said exhaust to said junction point having an atmospheric outlet;

(c) a dump valve having a normal position in which it closes said atmospheric outlet and having an operative position in which it permits communication of said exhaust with said outlet but isolates said exhaust and outlet from said inlet and from said combustion chamber, (d) an operating device for the dump valve, and (g) a start-control unit operable to control a starting sequence of the engine, said start-control unit including means which upon such operation of the unit cause said operating device to move the dump valve to said operative position and which subsequently, upon starting of the engine, cause that operating valve to restore the dump valve to its normal position.

2. A device as claimed in claim 1, which includes an isolating valve operable to cut-off flow through the branch duct during normal running of the engine, said start-control unit including automatic control means operable to open said isolating valve only as long as fuel is supplied to said injection means of the combustion chamber fed with air from the turbo compressor.