US 11,898,524 B1Granted

Bidirectional purging fuel from a fuel delivery system

AssigneeCaterpillar Inc.

InventorsMichael David Gerstner, Daniel Raymond Baldwin

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Loading patent…

Abstract

A fuel delivery system for an internal combustion engine system is described herein. The fuel delivery system uses one or more bidirectional purge components to provide for bidirectional purging of a fuel from at least a portion of the fuel delivery system. The bidirectional purge components provide for a fuel delivered using the fuel delivery system to be purged into the directional purge component in more than one fluid flow direction. When a differential pressure is applied across the bidirectional purge component, the fuel is purged into an inlet and an outlet of the bidirectional purge component, leaving the component through a purge outlet and into a tank. The differential pressure can be generated using a pressured fluid such as nitrogen or a pump downstream of the purge outlet.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A fuel delivery system, the system comprising:

a fuel pump fluidly connected to a fuel tank, the fuel pump configured to direct a fuel from the fuel tank to be used by an internal combustion engine;
a bidirectional purge component fluidly connected to the fuel pump, the bidirectional purge component comprising:
an inlet configured to receive the fuel from the fuel pump;
an outlet configured to:
direct the fuel out of the bidirectional purge component to the internal combustion engine during a fuel delivery operation;
and
receive the fuel into the bidirectional purge component during a purge operation;
and
a purge outlet fluidically connected to a tank, the purge outlet configured to direct the fuel entering the inlet or outlet during the purge operation to the tank;
and
a pressure regulator fluidically connected to the outlet of the bidirectional purge component, the pressure regulator configured to maintain a pressure of the fuel below a predetermined pressure;
and
a differential pressure source fluidically connected to the bidirectional purge component, the differential pressure source providing a differential pressure across the bidirectional purge component to cause the fuel to move into the inlet of the bidirectional purge component or the outlet of the bidirectional purge component during the purge operation.

10 more elements

A controller for controlling a purge operation of a fuel delivery system, the controller comprising:

a memory storing computer-executable instructions;
and
a processor in communication with the memory, the computer-executable instructions causing the processor to perform acts comprising:
receiving a purge event notice to purge a fuel from at least a portion of a fuel delivery system of an internal combustion engine;
establishing a purge configuration to commence a bidirectional purge operation of the fuel through a bidirectional purge component, wherein the bidirectional purge component comprises:
an inlet configured to receive the fuel from a fuel pump;
and
an outlet configured to:
direct the fuel out of the bidirectional purge component to the internal combustion engine during a fuel delivery operation;
and
receive the fuel into the bidirectional purge component during a purge operation;
and
a purge outlet fluidically connected to a tank, the purge outlet configured to direct the fuel entering the inlet or entering the outlet during the purge operation to the tank;
and
terminating the purge operation.

12 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 18/345,625Filed 30 Jun 2023
Granted: 13 Feb 2024
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification4 codes

F02M 37/54
Arrangements for purifying liquid fuel specially adapted for, or arranged on, internal-combustion engines, e.g. arrangements in the feeding…
F02M 37/0029
Valves in the fuel supply and return system: pressure regulator in the low pressure fuel system
F02M 37/0052
Layout or arrangement of systems for feeding fuel: details on the fuel return circuit; Arrangement of pressure regulators
F02M
Supplying combustion engines in general with combustible mixtures or constituents thereof

Family

No related US applications are recorded in the indexed filing history.

Timeline

Citations

Open elsewhere

Building an agent or pulling many patents? Use the API or MCP server instead of scraping pages. Get an API key