Gm Global Technolgoy Operations, Inc.

Corry W Johnson

Brian K Bartnick

Pablo Valencia, Jr

Bill F Tompkins

A compact four-way fluid flow control valve wherein an inlet port and three outlet ports are all disposed on the sidewall of a manifold. A valve core is rotatably disposed within the manifold, and has first and second core openings. Annular seals are disposed at blind portions of the sidewall of the valve core in non-circumscribing relation to the core openings and in abutting relation to the manifold. Rotation of the valve core with respect to the manifold provides selected fluid flow to any of the outlet ports, as well as a trickle flow at a selected outlet port and fluid mixing between selected outlet ports.

Compact electrically controlled four-way valve with port mixing

An optimized fluid valve port has the following features: 1) the seal is preferably a standard O-ring seated in a rectilinear seal channel of one of a first or second valve body, 2) the unsupported span of the O-ring during valve port crossing is limited to a length of less than approximately three O-ring diameters, the support being provided by a web disposed between port openings; and 3), within the area of the O-ring, the fluid flow area of the fluid valve port is maximized.

Fluid valve port optimized for robustness with standard O-ring seal

A single actuator multi-port flow control valve composed of a plurality of generally cylindrically shaped port bodies rotatably mounted within a valve body. The port bodies are serially driven by a single actuator via a drive link system composed of a drive pin on the inferior side wall of a serial superior port body selectively abutting, during rotation, a driven tab on the superior side wall of its serially inferior port body. The position of each port body is known to an electronic controller which selectively actuates the actuator to set each port body angular position.

Growing community of inventors

Orion Township, MI, United States of America

Corry W Johnson