Internal combustion engine
AssigneeToyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsHiroyuki Haga, Yuji Miyoshi
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An internal combustion engine includes an exhaust valve, a plurality of cams Ca, Cb, and Cc used to drive the exhaust valve, a cam-switching variable valve mechanism that selects a use cam used to drive the exhaust valve out of the plurality of cams Ca, Cb, and Cc, and an electronic control unit that determines whether switching abnormality of the use cam in the variable valve mechanism is present on the basis of a locus M in a predetermined period K which is a period in which the exhaust valve is opened. The locus M is a locus of an in-cylinder pressure changing rate dPc/dθ and is specifically a locus indicating a variation of the in-cylinder pressure changing rate dPc/dθ depending on a crank angle θ.
Claims16
An internal combustion engine comprising:
- a variable valve mechanism including a plurality of cams used to drive an exhaust valve;
- and
- an electronic control unit configured to:
- (a) select a use cam, which is a cam used to drive the exhaust valve, out of the plurality of cams, and
- (b) determine whether switching abnormality of the use cam is present on the basis of a locus of an in-cylinder pressure changing rate in a predetermined period, the predetermined period being a period in which the exhaust valve is opened,
- wherein:
- the variable valve mechanism is configured to switch the cams such that a plurality of modes are performed,
- the electronic control unit is configured to set the predetermined period to at least one period of a period in which the exhaust valve is opened by switching of the use cam and a period in which the exhaust valve is not opened by the switching of the use cam, when the switching of the use cam is normally performed depending on the modes, and
- the electronic control unit is configured to determine whether the switching abnormality is present on the basis of a predetermined item of the locus, and the predetermined item includes at least one of:
- (i) presence of an inflection point obtained by operating of the exhaust valve,
- (ii) absence of the inflection point,
- (iii) value of the inflection point, and
- (iv) generating timing of the inflection point.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.