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US 9,174,612 B2Granted
Viscous brake for driveline heating
AssigneeFord Global Technologies, LLC
InventorsWilliam Charles Ruona, Ross Dykstra Pursifull
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Embodiments for heating a vehicle driveline are provided. One example method for a vehicle comprises heating a fluid with kinetic vehicle energy in response to a vehicle braking request, and directing the fluid to a driveline component. In this way, kinetic vehicle energy during a vehicle braking event may be used to heat a driveline component.
Claims16
A vehicle method, comprising:
- heating a fluid with kinetic vehicle energy by applying a viscous brake via a valve adjusted by a controller with non-transitory instructions stored in memory without applying friction brakes, in response to a vehicle braking request below a threshold and a driveline temperature below a threshold temperature;
- applying the vehicle friction brakes if the vehicle braking request is greater than the threshold;
- and
- directing the heated fluid to a driveline component.
1 more element
A vehicle method, comprising:
- during a first condition with driveline temperature less than a threshold, decelerating a vehicle and heating a fluid by applying a wet clutch located on a vehicle axle in a differential housing without applying friction wheel brakes;
- directing the heated fluid to a driveline component;
- and
- during a second condition with driveline temperature greater than the threshold, decelerating the vehicle by applying only vehicle friction wheel brakes.
1 more element
A system for a vehicle, comprising:
- a viscous brake located along a length of a powertrain between an engine and a vehicle wheel, downstream of a transmission;
- vehicle friction brakes;
- a heat exchanger in fluid communication with the viscous brake and a moving driveline component;
- and
- a controller including non-transitory executable instructions to selectively actuate the viscous brake in response to a vehicle braking request below a first threshold, and to actuate the vehicle friction brakes in response to the vehicle braking request being above the first threshold.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.