Accumulator with randomly uniplanar bladder collapse
AssigneeAOS Holding Company
InventorsRobert M. Schurter, Robert H. Palmerton
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An accumulator (10) has a freely movable, flexible and deformable bladder (20) with a single relatively rigid ring (40) stationarily secured thereto and defining a circle on the bladder which remains substantially uniplanar with itself during the flexing and deforming movement of the bladder but moves with the bladder along variable deformation planes of random orientation. The bladder freely and randomly flexes and deforms such that the circle is randomly oriented along random and varying planes during movement of the bladder during a cycle.
Claims15
An accumulator comprising a cylindrical vessel having top and bottom ends and a cylindrical sidewall extending therebetween and having an axis, a flexible resilient bladder disposed within said vessel and having a peripheral edge stationarily secured to said cylindrical sidewall in a plane extending generally perpendicularly to said axis, being otherwise unconnected, and including an end portion having a circular perimeter spaced from said perimeter edge at a generally uniform distance, said bladder separating said vessel into variable volume upper and lower chambers, said bladder being flexibly and deformably movable upwardly toward said top end to decrease the volume of said upper chamber and increase the volume of said lower chamber, said bladder being flexibly and deformably movable downwardly toward said bottom end to decrease the volume of said lower chamber and increase the volume of said upper chamber, and only one relatively rigid ring stationarily secured to said perimeter of said end portion of said bladder, wherein during the flexing and deforming movement of said bladder, said ring prevents collapse of said end portion by maintaining the circular shape of said perimeter regardless of the randomly occurring orientation of said ring within said vessel.
The invention according to clam 1 wherein said bladder has a lower position minimizing the volume of said lower chamber and maximizing the volume of said upper chamber, and an upper position minimizing the volume of said upper chamber and maximizing the volume of said lower chamber, and wherein said bladder moves from said lower position to said upper position and back to said lower position to complete a cycle of movement, and repeats such movement through plural cycles, and wherein said bladder freely and randomly flexes and deforms such that said circle is randomly oriented along random and varying planes during movement of said bladder during a cycle, and such that the random movement of the plane of said circle randomly varies from cycle to cycle.
An accumulator comprising a cylindrical vessel having top and bottom ends, and a cylindrical sidewall extending therebetween and having an axis, a flexible resilient bladder disposed within said vessel and separating said vessel into variable volume upper and lower chambers, said bladder being flexibly and deformably movable upwardly toward said top end to an upper position minimizing the volume of said upper chamber and maximizing the volume of said lower chamber, said bladder being flexibly and deformably movable downwardly toward said bottom end to minimize the volume of said lower chamber and maximize the volume of said upper chamber, said bladder moving from said lower position to said upper position and back to said lower position to complete a cycle of movement, and movable through plural cycles of movement, said bladder comprising a generally cup-shaped member having a peripheral edge stationarily secured to said cylindrical sidewall in a plane extending generally perpendicularly to said axis and being otherwise unconnected, a sidewall extending from said peripheral edge, an end wall, and a tapering wall extending between said end wall and said bladder sidewall, said bladder also comprising an end portion including said end wall, a part of said tapering wall, and a circular perimeter spaced from said peripheral edge at a generally uniform distance, said end portion being movable upwardly toward said top end of said vessel and movable downwardly toward said bottom end of said vessel, and only one relatively rigid ring stationarily secured to said tapering wall of said bladder at said circular perimeter of said end portion, said ring being randomly oriented along random and varying planes during flexing and deforming movement of said bladder, and such that the random movement of the plane of said ring randomly varies from cycle to cycle, said ring preventing collapse of said end portion by maintaining the circular shape of said perimeter regardless of the randomly occurring orientation of said ring within said vessel.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.