Nippon Soken, Inc.

Denso Corporation

Other

Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Nippondenso Co., Ltd.

Hiroshi Yorita

Tohru Yoshinaga

Toshihiko Igashira

Tokio Kohama

Tetsuya Miwa

Shinichi Okabe

Makoto Toriyama

Takehiko Kato

Masatoshi Ikeda

Yasuyuki Sakakibara

Masao Kano

Takeshi Tanaka

Yasuyuki Satou

Hitoshi Morita

Keiji Kanao

Masahiro Tomita

Kazuhide Watanabe

Moriyasu Gotoh

Masamichi Shibata

Tsunenobu Hori

Seiko Abe

Hiromi Hiramatsu

Yoshiki Chujo

Kazuya Arakawa

Masaki Takeyama

Takanobu Kawano

Noriaki Kawai

Kiyoshi Iwade

Takashi Sato

Shigeiku Enomoto

Akira Shibata

Tatsushi Nakashima

Taketsugu Sasaki

Masao Wakayama

Masashi Nakagawa

Michiyasu Moritsugu

Manabu Hashimoto

Masahito Kudo

Toshiaki Yamaura

Kou Otsuka

Kou Ohtsuka

Kenichiro Tsukamoto

Kouichi Sakakibara

A helical gear device includes: first and second helical gear respectively and rotatably disposed about first and third mutually parallel axes; a second helical gear meshing with the first and third helical gears so that a rotary motion is transmitted from the first to the third helical gear through the second, the second helical gear having a center bore; a support shaft disposed coaxially with a second axis parallel to the first, and extending through the center bore with a predetermined amount of radial play between the support shaft and the second helical gear, rotatably supporting the second helical gear. The second and third helical gears have a predetermined radial clearance in their reference meshing state in which their pitch circles contact. The radial clearance is smaller than a radial gap of a backlash between the second and third helical gears in the reference meshing state.

Helical gear device

A control circuit includes a computing unit, which computes a target oil pressure, a duty output unit, which outputs a drive electric current based on a result of computation of the computing unit, and a dither output unit, which applies a dither signal to a linear solenoid. The dither signal is added to the drive electric current outputted from the duty output unit and is applied to the linear solenoid. The dither output unit always applies the dither signal to the linear solenoid throughout an operation. The dither output unit reduces a pulse height of the dither signal in a dead zone in comparison to a pulse height of the dither signal in a control zone. In this way, even when an axial position of a spool is changed between the control zone and the dead zone, the amplitude of dither of the spool can be made generally constant. Thereby, it is possible to limit a change in an output oil pressure.

Valve apparatus

A baffle plate includes a discharge portion that discharges lubricating oil that has dropped onto the baffle plate, to an oil pan. The discharge portion extends to be inclined in a direction in which cylinders are arranged, with respect to a rotation central axis of a crankshaft. The discharge portion includes a guide groove in which an upstream portion in a rotational direction of the crankshaft is located under a counter weight, and a downstream portion in the rotational direction of the crankshaft is located under a crank bearing. The discharge portion includes a discharge hole that is formed in the downstream portion of the guide groove in the rotational direction, and that provides communication between the oil pan and an engine block.

Baffle plate

A spark plug and cylinder head assembly includes a spark plug and a cylinder head of an engine. The cylinder head has a bore and a surface which faces a combustion chamber of the engine and on which the bore opens. The spark plug is fit in the bore of the cylinder head, and includes a metal shell, an insulator retained in the metal shell, a center electrode secured in the insulator, and a ground electrode facing the center electrode through a spark gap. An end surface of the metal shell has an outer edge and an inner edge, and tapers from the outer edge to the inner edge in a direction toward the inside of an air pocket formed between the metal shell and the insulator. The outer edge of the end surface of the metal shell protrudes from the surface of the cylinder head into the combustion chamber.

Spark plug and cylinder head assembly ensuring reliable ignition of air/fuel mixture

A small-sized spark plug is provided which ensures the stability in the location of production of sparks between center and ground electrodes. The center and ground electrodes have joined thereon cylindrical members such as noble metal chips which are opposed to each other through a spark gap. The cylindrical members are so oriented to have longitudinal center lines extend parallel in misalignment with each other. This orientation results in shorter and longer intervals between end surfaces of the cylindrical members. The sparks are concentrated between portions of edges of cylindrical members located apart the shorter interval, thereby resulting in the stability in the location of production of the sparks.

Structure of spark plug ensuring stability in location of production of sparks

A combustion chamber pressure sensor for an internal combustion engine includes an elongated pressure transmitting member having one end exposed to the interior of an engine cylinder and the opposite end contacting a pressure sensing element which generates a pressure measurement signal, the pressure transmitting member and pressure sensing element being contained within an elongated housing. A damping body formed of a viscoelastic material is disposed on an outer or inner circumferential surface of the housing, for reducing an amount of engine vibration that is transmitted to the pressure sensing element and thereby reducing noise in the pressure measurement signal.

Combustion chamber pressure sensor equipped with damper body for attenuating transmitted engine vibration

At least one of a center electrode tip and a ground electrode tip is made of an iridium alloy. A discharge gap, formed between the center electrode tip and the ground electrode tip, is less than 1.1 mm. And, cross sections of the center electrode tip and the ground electrode tip are equal to or smaller than 0.95 mmin a spherical region where a distance from a midpoint of the discharge gap is within 0.6 mm.

Spark plug and ignition apparatus

A combustion condition detecting device detects combustion ions between opposing electrodes in a combustion chamber by ion current flowing between the electrodes in response to a.c. current voltage applied between the electrodes. A low pass filter for eliminating current components having high order frequencies of the a.c. voltage is disposed in a primary side of the transformer so that a waveform of the a.c. voltage approximates a sine wave. Thus, detection accuracy of the combustion ions is prevented from being affected by variation of capacitive current included in the current flowing between the electrodes, wherein the variation of the capacitive current is caused by distortion of the waveform of the a.c. voltage.

Device and method for detecting engine combustion condition

An ignition system has an ignition circuit and an ion current detecting circuit. The ignition circuit has an ignition coil that has relatively low inductance of about less than 10 henries (H) because it is used in conjunction with a separate energy accumulating coil, and a driving circuit for a multi-spark ignition sequence. The ion current detecting circuit detects a second harmonic component of engine knock. The components of the system are designed so that the resonance frequency of an ion current path substantially coincides with the second harmonic frequency component, so that the Q-value of the ion current path is greater than 1. As a result, it is possible to improve knock detecting accuracy.

Ignition system with ion current detecting circuit

In an engine ignition unit, a transistor and a current detecting resistor are connected to primary and secondary windings of an ignition coil, respectively. The current detecting resistor is used for detecting a current flowing between the opposing electrodes of spark plug. At an ignition by the spark plug, high-frequency square wave signals are generated by an oscillator after an ignition signal is cut off. The square wave signals turn on and off the transistor. By this operation, a battery voltage is intermittently applied to the primary winding and an ion current is measured. A frequency of the square wave signals is set close to a resonant frequency of an ion current path including the spark plug, the secondary winding of the ignition coil and the current detecting resistor.

Ion current detecting device for internal combustion engine

At least one of a center electrode tip and a ground electrode tip is made of an iridium alloy. A discharge gap, formed between the center electrode tip and the ground electrode tip, is less than 1.1 mm. And, cross sections of the center electrode tip and the ground electrode tip are equal to or smaller than 0.95 mm in a spherical region where a distance from a midpoint of the discharge gap is within 0.6 mm.

A battery, an energy charge inductance, and a first transistor are connected in series in an ignition system. A primary winding and a second switching device are connected in series between the ground and a point between the energy charge inductance and the first switching device. A drive circuit switches periodically on and off the first switching device and the second switching device during multispark duration of the spark plug such that each switching device has a different switching status from each other. After the multispark duration, the drive circuit switches periodically on and off the second transistor with a short switching interval. The switching interval is set such that a relatively low voltage that almost causes a spark is impressed to the spark plug. An ion current detection is implemented by using this voltage as a power source.

Ion current detection system and method for internal combustion engine

An ignition device sets a total discharge period, each discharge period and each intermittent period of a multiple discharge are set by a control map in addition to the setting of a throttle opening, fuel injection timing, fuel injection period and ignition timing for the range of non-stratified charge combustion, when a direct injection-type engine operates in the range of stratified charge combustion. Ignition signals including a plurality of rises and falls are outputted in time with a specific ignition timing after fuel injection. Thus a plurality of sparks are generated from the spark plug, ensuring reliable ignition in response to changes in the concentration of sprayed fuel within the operation range for stratified charge combustion.

Spark ignition device for direct injection-type engines

To excellently grow flame kernel while lowering breakdown voltage, a bypass electrode comprising a semiconductor material is installed in a path bypassing an inductive spark gap between a center electrode and a ground electrode, and the center electrode and the ground electrode are electrically connected by the bypass electrode and capacitive discharge is carried out by applying breakdown voltage between the center electrode and the ground electrode via the bypass electrode, and thereafter, inductive discharge is carried out through the inductive spark gap.

Spark plug having a bypass electrode extending along a bypass path between center and ground electrode

An apparatus for detecting a condition of burning in an internal combustion engine includes a pair of opposed electrodes provided in a combustion chamber of the engine, and an AC voltage applying device for applying an AC voltage between the opposed electrodes. A current detecting device is operative for detecting a current flowing between the opposed electrodes. A current generating means for generating a current-representing signal depending on the detected current, the current generating means having a differentiating circuit for differentiating the AC voltage into the capacitance-current representing signal. In another aspect of this invention, the apparatus further comprises calculating means for calculating ratios between a parameter represented by the burning-ion current representing signal and a parameter represented by a signal depending on the AC voltage applied between the opposed electrodes. A waveform processing device is operative for removing the capacitive current component from the current-representing signal to extract a burning ion current component, and for generating a burning-ion-current representing signal depending on the extracted burning ion current component. The capacitive current component occurs in correspondence with the AC voltage. One aspect of the invention utilizes calculating means for calculating a ratio between a parameter represented by the burning-ion-current representing signal and a parameter represented by a signal depending on the AC voltage applied between opposed electrodes. The burning ion current component corresponds to a burning ion current which flows between the opposed electrodes. A burning condition detecting device is operative for detecting a condition of burning in the combustion chamber of the engine on the basis of the burning-ion-current representing signal generated by the waveform processing device. The waveform processing device includes an integration processing device for integrating the current-representing signal to generate the burning-ion-current representing signal.

Apparatus for detecting a condition of burning in an internal combustion

Growing community of inventors

Kariya, Japan

Hiroshi Yorita