WO2009033241A1 - Ecological engine oil pan breather - Google Patents

Abstract

The ECOLOGICAL ENGINE OIL PAN BREATHER is a mechanism comprised of a head and element, which compose the filtering set. This is fixed in the engine compartment aiming mainly at separating liquid and gaseous toxic residues; storing all the residual liquid mass inside the filtering element; filtering gaseous toxic residues, transferring the gases to the bottom of the filter for a second filtering cycle; and finally allowing these now neutralized gases to be admitted for re-burning.

Description

"ECOLOGICAL ENGINE OIL PAN BREATHER"

This patent of engine oil pan breather model aims at, as the title already explains, making it breathe in an ecologically correct way. This breather device works to balance the internal pressure resulting from the burning of fuel and lubricant oil particles, since all gasoline, ethanol, natural gas (NGV), kerosene, and diesel or biodiesel engines have this mechanism.

From the invention of the automobile until the early 1980s, every engine would emit all the residues produced in its operation directly into the atmosphere, through the so-called "breather pipe". This situation only changed after the regulation of ruling no. 018/86 by CONAMA, due to which, car manufacturers began to concern about air pollutant emission.

A few years later, studies showed alarming numbers about car-emitted air pollution and that about 30% of this pollution was due to oil particles coming out of the oil pan breather pipe. Moreover, PROCONVE - Programa de Controle da Poluiςao do Ar por Veiculos Automotores (Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Program) demanded a maximum limit of emissions for all types of engine; automobile, all kinds of truck, boat, ship, locomotive, generator, tractor, and farming and industry machine engines. This led car manufacturers to develop the "Closed Ventilation System", which consists in connecting the breather pipe to the intake manifold. This practice did not minimize pollution emissions, since it made the mentioned residual discharge and gases be burned again along with the fuel, and now, because of the vacuum pressure in the manifold, it started to take in more lubricant oil particles and, consequently, release these particles through the exhaust pipe. The Closed Ventilation System caused even worse results in high mileage cars, since the wearing between cylinder block and liner and between piston and rod cause higher consumption of lubricant oil, increasing significantly the emission of air pollutants. It also increased CONAMA's concern, which complemented the regulations by issuing ruling no. 016/1995 setting maximum limits of pollutants in terms of free acceleration smoke rates.

Taking these problems into account and aiming at overcoming them, the ECOLOGICAL ENGINE OIL PAN BREATHER was developed, manufactured, tested and is already installed and working effectively in a high mileage turbo diesel engine. The breather is characterized by hoses, clamps, dual air passage filter heads (nor disposable, but washable at every maintenance service) and a filtering element (disposable and recyclable at every engine maintenance service). The breather works fixed in the engine itself or in any compartment of the engine, fixed through a support. The ECOLOGICAL ENGINE OIL PAN BREATHER is divided in two parts, explained as follows:

The first part, here named head, is built with circular plates, threaded, bored and mounted pipes, resembling a hamburger bun.

The second part, called filtering element, in this particular case, has 90 mm of diameter and 130 mm of height, presenting thus, a cylindrical shape. This element, with these dimensions is intended for medium-sized engines, a 3.0 liter diesel engine, for example. However, these dimensions may be increased or decreased allowing its use in several types of engine.

Exclusive internal features of the ecological filtering element: It has a paper element with multiple synchronized folds in order to allow the

"cyclone effect" of the gases and in this stage, after these gases are totally clean, force them through the only passage at the bottom of the air filter. This is an important detail in turbo fed engines, because they have higher vacuum pressure than aspirated engines. This filter, called ecological, has a lid in the lower inside section of the funnel-shaped cup, specially developed to store liquid residues, not allowing them to get into the air flow.

Built without retention or safety valves but with an optional drain, this filter works effectively throughout all its service life, having to be replaced and recycled (with the other replaceable parts) only during periodical maintenance service of the engine.

Claims

The "ECOLOGICAL ENGINE OIL PAN BREATHER", comprised of a head

(fig. 3) that is connected to the engine (fig. 1) through a dual air passage hose (fig.

7); one entering (fig. 5) and following into the filtering element (fig. 4) and the other air passage (fig. 6), which leads the filtered gases through the hose (fig. 8) to the bottom of the air filter (fig. 2).

Engineering details of the Ecological Engine Oil Pan Breather head (fig. 3): The threaded piping (fig. 1A) goes into the bore in the upper plate (Fig. 2A), and through the lower plate (fig. 3A), which has a seal ring (fig. 4A) and is fixed with the filtering element.

Fitting pipes (fig. 5A) go into the upper plate, and are aligned to the plate. Engineering details of the Ecological Engine Oil Pan Breather filtering element:

The cylinder-shaped filtering element (fig. 4), called cup (fig. 1 B), stores all the filtering components in its inside. The element lid is tight sealed (fig. 9B). It has in its lower inside section a spiral spring (fig. 2B) responsible for keeping the conic- shaped washer (fig. 3b) pushed upwards. This forces the paper element (fig. 4B) to precisely fit the seal washer (fig. 5B), which fits the spacer washer (fig. 6B), which fits the piping (fig. 7B), which is sealed by a rubber washer (fig. 8B)₃ which finally seals the lid (fig. 9B).