Electrified vehicle with oriented parking mechanism
AssigneeFord Global Technologies, LLC
InventorsJi Wu, Michael W. Degner, Wei Wu
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An electrified vehicle includes a multi-phase electric machine having a rotor with a number of magnetic pole pairs and secured for rotation with an output shaft. A parking gear secured for rotation with the output shaft has external teeth configured to selectively engage a parking pawl. The parking gear, the rotor, and the output shaft include complementary angular alignment features to angularly orient the parking gear relative to the rotor in an angular position offset by an index angle from one of the magnetic poles of the rotor such that occurrences of the parking pawl being engaged with the parking gear during dead time periods of an inverter powering the electric machine are reduced or eliminated.
Claims17
An electrified vehicle comprising:
- a multi-phase electric machine having a first number of phases and including a stator surrounding and separated by an air gap from a rotor having a second number of magnetic pole pairs, the rotor secured for rotation with an output shaft of the electric machine;
- and
- a parking gear secured for rotation with the output shaft of the electric machine and having a third number of external teeth spaced around a circumference configured to selectively engage a parking pawl between adjacent external teeth, wherein the parking gear, the rotor, and the output shaft include complementary angular alignment features to angularly orient the parking gear relative to the rotor in an angular position offset by an index angle from one of the magnetic poles of the rotor, wherein the index angle is based on the first number of phases, the second number of pole pairs, and the third number of external teeth.
An electrified vehicle comprising:
- a multi-phase electric machine having a first number of phases and including a stator surrounding and separated by an air gap from a rotor having a second number of magnetic pole pairs, the rotor secured for rotation with an output shaft of the electric machine;
- a parking gear secured for rotation with the output shaft of the electric machine and having a third number of external teeth spaced around a circumference;
- a parking pawl pivotable about a pin to selectively engage the parking gear between adjacent external teeth;
- a traction battery;
- and
- an inverter coupled to the traction battery and operable to convert direct current (DC) power from the traction battery to multi-phase alternating current (AC) power provided to the electric machine by controlling a pair of switches associated with each one of the phases of the multi-phase AC power, and having a number of dead time periods when both switches of any of the pairs of switches are off;
- wherein the parking gear, the rotor, and the parking pawl are angularly positioned relative to each other to minimize the number of dead time periods that coincide with the parking pawl being aligned between adjacent external teeth of the parking gear.
An electrified vehicle comprising:
- a multi-phase electric machine having a first number of phases and including a stator surrounding and separated by an air gap from a rotor having a second number of magnetic pole pairs, the rotor secured for rotation with an output shaft of the electric machine;
- a parking gear secured for rotation with the output shaft of the electric machine and having a third number of external teeth spaced around a circumference;
- a parking pawl pivotable about a pin to selectively engage the parking gear between adjacent external teeth;
- a traction battery;
- and
- an inverter coupled to the traction battery and operable to convert direct current (DC) power from the traction battery to multi-phase alternating current (AC) power provided to the electric machine by controlling a pair of switches associated with each one of the phases of the multi-phase AC power, and having a number of dead time periods when both switches of any of the pairs of switches are off;
- wherein the parking gear, the rotor, and the output shaft include complementary angular alignment features that angularly position the external teeth of the parking gear relative to magnetic poles of the rotor to minimize the number of dead time periods that coincide with the parking pawl being aligned between adjacent external teeth of the parking gear.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.