The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Nov. 01, 1977
Filed:
Dec. 06, 1976
James R Pettingell, Granby, CT (US);
Lee R Armstrong, Enfield, CT (US);
United Technologies Corporation, Hartford, CT (US);
Abstract
The tooth-to-tooth time interval of teeth on a flywheel of a rotating internal combustion engine is recorded for at least a significant portion of an engine revolution, the variation in the time intervals are utilized to determine minima in the tooth-to-tooth time intervals, thereby to separate the tooth-to-tooth time intervals to cylinder-by-cylinder groupings. The number of teeth from one minima to the next for a given number of cylinders is summed. The summation of the number of teeth may then be used as a measured count of the number of teeth on the flywheel of the engine; this measured count may be compared against industry standards if desired. In a second embodiment, the measured count is averaged on a per-cylinder basis, and the tooth count for each cylinder is compared therewith and any data more than 20% off the average is eliminated from final computation of an average number of teeth for a given number of cylinders. The invention provides alternative use of engine cycle identification signals or engine tooth waveform analysis to measure the number of teeth on the flywheel.