US 6,044,943 AGranted

Shaft decoupler

AssigneeLitens Automotive Partnership

InventorsKlaus Bytzek, K. Mats Lipowski, Jacek S. Komorowski, Henry W. Thomey

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Abstract

A crankshaft decoupler has a mounting hub, a pulley rotatably mounted on the mounting hub, an annular carrier mounted within said pulley, a biasing device mounted therebetween, and a one way clutch mounted between the annular carrier and the pulley. The biasing device cushions the belt drive from crankshaft impulses and lowers the angular resonant frequency of the belt system. The one way clutch prevents sudden reversal of the belt tension in the drive due to start/stop of the engine or sudden deceleration of the engine and prevents momentary reverse slip belt squeal as a result of the tensioners' inadequate output for the reverse mode. The one way clutch limits the maximum amount of torque which may be transmitted preventing belt slippage during momentary overload.

Claims13

Dependent claims

A shaft decoupler comprising

a mounting hub mountable on a shaft,
a pulley rotatably mounted on said hub, said pulley engageable with an accessory drive belt,
a carrier connecting member operatively disposed between said mounting hub and said pulley,
a spring elastically coupling said hub to said carrier connecting member, and
a one-way clutch connected with said carrier connecting member such that said connecting member connects said spring in series with said one-way clutch, said one-way clutch constructed and arranged to couple said pulley with said hub to enable said shaft and said pulley to be resiliently coupled to one another by said spring and thus enable said spring to damp rotational forces transmitted between the mounting hub and the pulley in response to a first predetermined torque relationship between said shaft and said pulley, said one-way clutch constructed and arranged to de-couple said pulley from said hub to enable said pulley and said shaft to rotate independently in response to a second predetermine torque relationship between the shaft and the pulley.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.