Back to results
US 12,208,802 B2Granted
Method for cold start lube evacuation
AssigneeDana Heavy Vehicle Systems Group, LLC
InventorsJordan M. Houser, James Allen
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Methods and systems for evacuating lubricant from an area of an axle are described. The lubricant may be evacuated away from one or more clutches during low temperatures so that a clutch may be engaged while having to displace less lubricant to engage the clutch. In one example, an electric machine may be rotated to evacuate lubricant away from the clutch.
Claims18
A vehicle system, comprising:
- an axle including a set of gears and an electric machine;
- and
- a controller including instructions stored in non-transitory memory that when executed cause the controller to rotate the electric machine for a predetermined amount of time in response to a request to cold start the axle and a temperature being less than a threshold temperature.
A method for operating a vehicle, comprising:
- rotating an electric machine of an axle via a controller while not permitting engagement of a clutch of the axle in response to a request to activate the axle and a temperature of a lubricant being less than a threshold temperature.
A method for operating a vehicle, comprising:
- rotating an electric machine of an axle via a controller in response to a request to activate the axle and a temperature of a lubricant being less than a threshold temperature, wherein the request to activate the axle is based on operator input to a human/machine interface, and wherein the electric machine rotates one or more gears of a gear set while the gear set is in a neutral state.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.