US 5,616,019 AGranted

Rolling piston type expansion machine

AssigneeKabushiki Kaisha Toshiba

InventorsHitoshi Hattori, Motonori Futamura, Kazuo Saito, Masao Ozu

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Abstract

A rolling piston type expansion machine eliminates the need for an open-close valve mechanism and smoothens the timing of inflow of high-pressure gas. The machine includes a cylinder having a discharge port and a roller freely gyratable or orbital in the cylinder. A freely movable blade supported in the cylinder has its tip in contact with the circumferential surface of the roller to form an expansion chamber. A gas passage is freely rotatably supported by a main bearing member and a secondary bearing member. The gas passage is formed in a main shaft having a crank shaft portion that gyrates or orbits the roller. An inlet port is provided along a shaft center of the main shaft. An inflow timing control portion controls inflow timing of the suction gas toward the expansion chamber via the inlet port of the gas passage.

Claims9

Dependent claims

A rolling piston type expansion machine comprising:

a cylinder having a discharge port therein;
a crank shaft portion located within the cylinder;
a roller located within the cylinder and coaxially supported by the crank shaft;
a blade movably supported by the cylinder and contacting the roller to prevent the roller from rotating around an axis of the roller and forming an expansion chamber;
a main shaft eccentrically supported by the crank shaft with an axis of the main shaft displaced from an axis of the crank shaft;
a gas passage formed through the main shaft in an axial direction of the main shaft;
a roller inflow inlet extending in the roller;
and
a crank shaft inflow extending in the crank shaft to communicate working gas between the roller inflow inlet and the gas passage,
wherein the working gas is intermittently supplied to the expansion chamber in synchronism with rotation of the main shaft.

7 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.