Denso Corporation

Kyosan Denki Co., Ltd.

Nippondenso Co., Ltd.

Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Tetsuro Okazono

Hironobu Oki

Norihiro Hayashi

Shinobu Oikawa

Hideto Takahashi

Akihiro Ishitoya

Masato Inoue

Toshiaki Nakayama

Yoshitaka Nishio

Yoshio Ebihara

Yutaka Niwa

Takanari Takagaki

Shingo Fukuoka

Akinari Sugiyama

Masaharu Oohashi

Hideo Kamo

Kouji Maruyama

Mikio Torii

Shinji Noda

Takashi Koba

Katsuhisa Yamada

Teppei Matsumoto

Kiyomori Kobayashi

Kazuki Matsubara

Rui Adachi

Yoshihisa Sanami

Koji Maruyama

Shinichi Morita

Takemasa Fujiseki

Atsushi Kamiyama

Hajime Danjo

Tomohito Ishihara

Kazuaki Ae

Junichi Takatsuji

Hiroshi Morishita

A fuel supply device includes a pump unit, a lid unit and a strut linking unit. The pump unit is located on a bottom of a fuel tank for discharging fuel from the fuel tank to an outside thereof. The lid unit is attached to an upper wall of the fuel tank to close an opening formed in the upper wall. The lid unit has a fuel discharge port. The strut linking unit connects the lid unit to the pump unit. The strut linking unit includes an upper-side strut member, which is formed as an independent component from the lid unit. The strut linking unit includes a lower-side strut member, which is movably connected to the upper-side strut member in a vertical direction. The upper-side strut member is connected to the lid unit by a snap-fit connection. A connecting portion between the upper-side strut member and the lid unit has a stress concentration portion, which is preferentially damaged when an external force is applied to the strut linking unit.

Fuel supply device

A vehicle structure includes a fuel tank configured to store a fuel supplied to an internal-combustion engine of a vehicle and a battery configured to store an electric power supplied to an electric motor of the vehicle to drive the vehicle. A gravity center of the battery is lower than a gravity center of the fuel tank, and at least a part of the fuel tank overlaps with the battery in a top plan view of the vehicle.

Vehicle structure

A housing has an inner passage to communicate with both a fuel passage, which is to conduct fuel from a fuel pump, and a return passage, which is to return fuel a fuel tank. A valve body is movable in the housing to change a minimum flow passage cross-sectional area of the inner passage. A spring is connected to the valve body and changes its biasing load in correspondence with a fuel temperature to move the valve body. The spring moves the valve body such that the minimum flow passage cross-sectional area, when the fuel temperature is equal to or higher than a predetermined vapor generation temperature, is larger than the minimum flow passage cross-sectional area when the fuel temperature is lower than the vapor generation temperature.

Fuel supply apparatus

A pump unit includes an insertion guide member that extends in a longitudinal direction of the pump unit and is used to guide the pump unit at a time of inserting the pump unit into an opening portion of a fuel tank. The insertion guide member includes a stopper portion and a guide portion that are arranged along an edge part of the insertion guide member. When the pump unit is projected in the longitudinal direction onto a plane of projection, the stopper portion protrudes outward from an imaginary circle, which has a fitting portion's diameter, on the plane of projection. The guide portion guides the pump unit in a rotational direction relative to a stay. A cross section of the pump unit taken along a guide portion orthogonal plane is set to be within the imaginary circle, which has the fitting portion's diameter.

Fuel supply device and method for mounting and demounting fuel supply device

A fuel supply device includes: a cover attached to an upper wall of a fuel tank; a pump unit disposed on a bottom wall of the fuel tank; and a connecting strut that connects the cover and the pump unit with each other. The pump unit includes: a unit body supported by the connecting strut in a radial direction and a thrust direction, and a fuel pump arranged on the unit body to pump fuel drawn from the fuel tank toward an internal-combustion engine. The fuel pump is located offset toward the connecting strut from a width center of a width from a thrust support part where the unit body is supported by the connecting strut to an end part of the unit body opposite from the connecting strut in a specific transverse direction.

A fuel supply device includes a fuel pump, a filter case, a fuel passage, a discharge passage, and a residual pressure holding valve. A communication port opens at a shifted position of the fuel passage that is positionally shifted from the residual pressure holding valve toward the discharge passage. The fuel passage includes an outside passage part through which fuel flows from the communication port toward the discharge passage, and an inside passage part that throttles a flow of fuel flowing from the communication port toward the residual pressure holding valve more than the outside passage part. When a passage cross-sectional area of the inside passage part is converted into a passage cross-sectional area of a circular pipe, D which is a passage diameter of the circular pipe, and L which is a length of the inside passage part satisfy a relational expression of L/D&#x2265;3.

A fuel supply device includes a sub-tank, a pump unit, a jet pump, and a connection structure connected with the pump unit and the jet pump. The connection structure has a guide part that is provided to the pump unit and guides the pressurized fuel toward the bottom in an axial direction, a pressurizing part that is provided to the jet pump and is fitted to the guide part from a side of the bottom in an axially slidable manner, to which the pressurized fuel is guided from the guide part, a shock-absorbing member that has a low spring constant that is predetermined and mitigates an axial impact between the guide part and the pressurizing part, and a sealing member that has a high spring constant higher than the low spring constant of the shock-absorbing member and radially seals a space between the guide part and the pressurizing part.

A fuel supply device includes a fuel pump, a filter case that houses a fuel filter, and a port member joined to the filter case, a fuel pumped by the fuel pump from inside a fuel tank is filtered by the fuel filter and supplied from inside the filter case toward an internal combustion engine, and the port member integrally includes a plurality of fuel ports that communicate from inside of the filter case to outside of the filter case.

A fuel supply device includes a fuel pump and a filter case that houses a fuel filter, a fuel pumped by the fuel pump from inside a fuel tank is filtered by the fuel filter and supplied from inside the filter case toward an internal combustion engine, and the filter case includes a case body having a closed bottom shape that forms a housing chamber of the fuel filter, a case cap that covers an aperture of the case body by being joined to the case body, and a residual pressure retention valve that, when the fuel pump is stopped, retains a pressure of the fuel supplied from inside the filter case toward the internal combustion engine, the residual pressure retention valve being disposed at a joint boundary of the case body and the case cap.

A resilient member is accommodated within a single support column, which connects a flange and a pump unit. The resilient member presses the pump unit in an axial direction toward a bottom part of a fuel tank through a holder member. The support column is formed in a polygonal tube shape and has a specific range in a part in the axial direction. A peripheral wall in the specific range is concave relative to corner parts of peripheral walls in an outside of the specific range so that a longitudinal groove having a groove bottom is provided to separate an inside and an outside of the support column. The holder member holding the pump unit is formed in a polygonal hole shape to be fitted with the peripheral walls. The holder member has a slide protrusion, which slidingly moves in the longitudinal groove in a state that the holder member is pushed into the longitudinal groove from the outside of the support column.

A support shaft connects between a flange and a pump unit. An intermediate member, which connects between the support shaft and pump unit, enables a relative positional change between the support shaft and the pump unit in an axial direction of the support shaft. The intermediate member limits a relative positional change between the support shaft and the pump unit in a circumferential direction of the support shaft. A resilient member is received in the support shaft and exerts a restoring force in an axial direction of the support shaft to urge the pump unit, which is movable relative to the support shaft in the axial direction, toward a bottom portion of the fuel tank.

A reservoir is in a bottomed tubular shape and located in a fuel tank. A lid member closes an opening of the reservoir. A pump unit discharges fuel stored in the reservoir to an exterior of the fuel tank. The pump unit is supported by a holding portion of the lid member.

Fuel feed apparatus

A pump unit having a fuel pump and a suction filter is provided in a sub tank of a fuel tank. A filter element sheet for the suction filter is formed in a cup shape, a bottom wall portion of which faces to an inner bottom surface of the sub tank. A suction port of the fuel pump is opened to a fuel passage formed in the inside of the suction filter, so that filtered fuel is sucked into the fuel pump. Multiple mountain fold portions and multiple valley fold portions are formed on a side wall of the cup-shaped filter element sheet, to thereby increase surface area for filtering the fuel.

Suction filter

A reservoir is located in a fuel tank. The reservoir is in a bottomed tubular shape having a periphery defining an opening. A lid member is located in the fuel tank and mounted to the periphery of the reservoir to close the opening. A pump unit is partially accommodated in the reservoir to discharge fuel stored in the reservoir to an exterior of the fuel tank. The pump unit is located at a position offset from a center axis of the lid member. The pump unit has a projection projected from the lid member to an exterior of the reservoir. A remaining quantity detector is configured to detect a quantity of fuel in the fuel tank. The remaining quantity detector is located at a remaining space remaining in the fuel tank. The remaining space is located on the lid member and located around the projection.

A fuel pump has a pump chamber accommodating a rotor member. The rotor member is rotatable to supply fuel to from a tank to an exterior of the tank. A case is supported in the tank. The case accommodates a part of the fuel pump. A pump bracket is located in the tank. The pump bracket is in a tubular bottomed shape having a sidewall portion in which a remaining portion of the fuel pump is inserted such that the sidewall portion surrounds a radially outside of the pump chamber of the remaining portion. The pump bracket is joined with the case to define a gap therebetween in a radial direction of the rotor member such that the pump bracket is movable relative to the case.

Growing community of inventors

Okazaki, Japan

Tetsuro Okazono