Piston cylinder unit with a piston having tolerance compensation

Abstract

A piston-cylinder unit includes a cylinder having an axis and an inner surface and a piston assembly attached to a piston rod and received in the cylinder for axial movement. The piston assembly includes a piston body, which has a plurality of radially resiliently deformable wall portions at its perimeter, the wall portions being spaced apart circumferentially from each other. Each wall portion has opposite ends that are joined integrally with the piston body and is defined by an opening in the body. Each wall portion engages the inner surface of the cylinder and deforms resiliently radially with respect to the axis of the cylinder to compensate for tolerance variations in the inner surface of the cylinder. The piston assembly may include a piston ring, which is received on the piston body with centering surfaces to restrict its radial movement and which functions to block and unblock a fluid bypass between sections of the cylinder on opposite sides of the piston assembly.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.