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AssigneeABB Research Ltd.
InventorsGeorge Zhang, Hui Zhang, Yanhua Yang, Bruno Barrey, Daniel W. McGillis
Estimating the term…
A method and apparatus for engine piston installation in which robots are used for the entire engine piston installation process. A first robot equipped with a stuffing gripper and force control picks up a piston with a connection rod, detects the piston ring presence, squeeze the rings, find the engine cylinder bore, and stuffs the piston into the cylinder bore. A second robot can be used to load and unload the engine block, hold the block and position it to the location, and indexes the crankshaft into the proper orientation for each cylinder bore. A set of tools either fixed on a stationary station or on a third robot is used to guide the piston connecting rod, transport and place on the connecting rod cap, and fasten the cap onto the connecting rod. The piston connecting rod guiding process may be omitted in piston stuffing for some types of engines.
An apparatus for stuffing a piston assembly into an associated bore of an engine block, said piston assembly comprising:
A method for stuffing a piston assembly into an associated bore of an engine block, said piston assembly comprising a rod cap, and a piston subassembly comprising a connecting rod suitable for coupling to said rod cap and a piston head, said connecting rod having a groove therein, the method comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.