Engine oil supply system and a method of controlling an engine oil supply system
AssigneeFord Global Technologies, LLC
InventorsIan Graham Pegg, Timothy James Bowman
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An engine oil supply system for a motor vehicle and a method of controlling an engine oil supply system of a motor vehicle is disclosed in which, particularly during an engine overrun period or an engine shut-down, kinetic energy from the slowing engine is used to drive an oil pump so as to store oil in an oil accumulator for later use by one or more engine components without the engine using fuel. The stored oil allows a downsized oil pump to be used thereby saving fuel by providing a supply of oil in addition to or as an alternative to the oil supplied from the oil pump.
Claims16
An engine oil supply system having an engine driven oil pump to provide a supply of oil at pressure to an oil supply circuit and an oil accumulator connectable to the oil supply circuit by means of an electronically controlled valve, an electronic controller arranged to receive an input indicative of at least one engine operating condition and to control the operation of the electronically controlled valve based at least partly upon the at least one engine operating condition, a first pressure sensor to sense the pressure of oil in the oil supply circuit and supply an output indicative of the sensed pressure to the electronic controller and a second oil pressure sensor to sense the pressure of the oil in the oil accumulator and supply an output indicative of the sensed pressure to the electronic controller, wherein the electronic controller is operable to compare the output from the first pressure sensor with the output from the second pressure sensor and, if the sensed pressure of the oil in the oil accumulator is lower than the sensed pressure of the oil in the oil supply circuit and a predefined engine operating condition indicating that charging of the oil accumulator with oil will incur substantially no fuel usage by the engine is present, operate the electronically controlled valve to connect the oil accumulator to the oil supply circuit so as to charge the oil accumulator with oil at pressure.
A method of controlling an engine oil supply system having an engine driven oil pump to provide a supply of oil at pressure to an oil supply circuit and an oil accumulator connectable to the oil supply circuit wherein the method comprises measuring the pressure of the oil in the oil supply circuit, measuring the pressure of the oil in the oil accumulator, comparing the pressure of the oil in the oil supply circuit to the pressure of oil in the oil accumulator and, if the measured pressure of the oil in the oil accumulator is lower than the measured pressure of the oil in the oil supply circuit and a predefined operating condition is present indicating that charging of the oil accumulator with oil will incur substantially no fuel usage by the engine, connecting the oil accumulator to the oil supply circuit so as to charge the oil accumulator with oil at pressure.
A method comprising:
- adjusting an electronically controlled valve to a first position to connect an oil accumulator to an oil supply line in response to accumulator pressure being less than a oil supply circuit pressure;
- and
- adjusting the valve to a second position to connect the oil accumulator and a demand in response to the accumulator pressure being greater than a predefined pressure.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.