Apparatus for providing supplemental advanced filtration

Abstract

The present invention teaches a method and apparatus to quickly and inexpensively implement advanced, bypass grade, fine, or additional filtration to engines and hydraulic systems. The present invention has the ability to make quick hydraulic connection to the engine or hydraulic system, where oil is super cleaned, without major modifications as is the paradigm by traditional bypass filtration systems and without removing any lubricant from the engine or system that the present invention is connected to, as is the paradigm of traditional bypass filtering systems. When connected to the normally provided stud for the spin-on oil filter in an engine or hydraulic system, the net effect of interest to the present invention is that by simply placing the adapter at the point of connection of the spin-on oil filter, many of the necessary plumbing associated with the traditional bypass filter installation is obviated, as is the energy and labor intensive process of seeking for a pressure point and a return of the oil. The present invention relies on the differential pressure effected by either alone or in combination of an orifice restriction to effect flow of either engine oil or hydraulic fluid, to route through a high efficiency filter, in trapping and low pressure to flow, an amount of dirty oil and then to return same amount to reconstitute a total flow on the system, whereby supplemental or advanced filtration is quickly connected to an engine or hydraulic system.

Claims

1. An adapter assembly for use in implementing serial advanced filtration in a fluid filtration system, comprising: an adapter body configured to be interposed between a support mount of a fluid gallery and a first filter, the adapter body having an inner bore, the adapter body defining a first flow passage configured to direct a primary flow PF of a total fluid flow TF to a first outlet of the adapter body, a second flow passage configured to direct a secondary flow SF of the total fluid flow TF to a second outlet of the adapter body configured to be fluidly connected with an inlet of a second filter, and a third flow passage that extends between an inlet opening on an outer surface of the adapter body and fluidly connected with said first outlet of the adapter body that channels said secondary flow SF of the total fluid flow TF from an outlet of said second filter, and an adapter nipple configured to extend through the inner bore of the adapter body to affix the adapter body to said support mount and having a nipple central flow channel, wherein during use the adapter nipple is configured to couple to the support mount and to fluidly communicate with the clean fluid side of the first filter to provide a return of the primary flow PF, and wherein the secondary flow SF is returned from the second filter outlet via said third flow passage to reconstitute said total fluid flow TF through the nipple flow passage, whereby during use a fraction or ratio SF/TF is continuously super cleaned, and the secondary flow is made to be filtered first by the second filter then by the first filter.

2. The adapter assembly of claim 1, wherein said first flow passage comprises one or more peripheral axial passages defined radially outward from the inner bore.

3. The adapter assembly of claim 1, wherein the first filter has a first efficiency, the second filter has a second efficiency, and the second filtering efficiency is different than the first filtering efficiency.

4. The adapter assembly of claim 1, wherein a bypass valve is provided to avoid fluid starvation due to blockage of said peripheral axial passages.

5. The adapter assembly of claim 1, wherein the flow area of said peripheral passages is variable.

6. A kit for use in implementing serial advanced filtration in a fluid filtration system, said filtration system having a support mount of a fluid gallery and a first filter, said kit comprising: an adapter body comprising an inner bore, a first flow passage disposed radially outward from the inner bore and configured to direct a primary flow portion of a total fluid flow from an inlet of the adapter body to a first outlet of the adapter body, a second flow passage disposed radially outward from the inner bore and the first flow passage and configured to direct a secondary flow portion of the total fluid flow from the inlet of the adapter body to a second outlet of the adapter body, and a third flow passage that extends between an inlet opening on an outer surface of the adapter body and fluidly connected to said first outlet; an adapter nipple configured to extend through the inner bore of the adapter body to affix the adapter between said support mount and said first filter, having a nipple flow passage to channel said total fluid flow during use; and a pair of conduits to connect the second outlet with an inlet of a second filter and to connect said inlet opening to an outlet of the second filter.

7. The kit of claim 6, wherein the first filter has a first efficiency, the second filter has a second efficiency, and the second filtering efficiency is different than the first filtering efficiency.

8. The kit of claim 6, wherein said first flow passage comprises at least one peripheral axial passages defined radially outward from the inner bore.

9. The kit of claim 6, wherein the adapter is equipped with a bypass valve to avoid fluid starvation due to blockage of said first flow passage.

10. The kit of claim 6, wherein the adapter first flow passage area is variable.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0021] FIG. 1 Is a schematic representation of the main components and hydraulic flows of the present invention.

[0022] FIG. 2 Is a detailed side and top views showing in more detail the structures of the present invention and hydraulic flows

[0023] FIG. 3 Is a detail side view of the adapter nipple that affixes the present invention adapter to the normally provided engine oil filter nipple

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0024] Referring to FIG. 2, it shows a side and top view of the present invention showing an adapter 2 that is interposed between a normally provided spin-on oil filter 5, partly shown as it is a very well known structure in the art, and an engine 3, said adapter 2 receives from its engine side an oil flow 28 that is normally provided by an engine oil pump 9, normally and in the absence of adapter 2, oil flow 28 would be normally channeled to and through filter 5, and when adapter 2 is in place oil flow 28 is split into at least two flows, a secondary flow SF and a primary flow PF.

[0025] Now referring to FIG. 1, it shows a schematic representation of said flows PF and SF and the structures that make up the present invention, still referring to FIG. 1, said adapter 2 is equipped with, at least one, a Through Flow Orifice TFO that channels said primary flow PF towards the normally provided filter 5, adapter 2 channels the secondary flow SF toward a filter head 8 equipped with a high efficiency filter 10, said adapter 2 is fluidly connected to filter head 8 by two conduit means, a conduit means 4 and a conduit means 6 that channels the secondary flow SF to and from adapter 2 by an outlet port 12 and an inlet port 14 and connects to and inlet 19 and outlet 21 of the high efficiency filter 10 and filter head 8 combination respectively.

[0026] Still referring to FIG. 1, placing adapter 2 between the filter 5 and the engine 3 generates a pressure differential between a pump side hydraulic point A and a filter side hydraulic point G, where the secondary flow SF experiences a trajectory AbcdefG, said secondary flow SF experiencing high efficiency filtration through filter 10 equipped with a high efficiency filter media 11 and returns as a super clean secondary flow SF via conduit means 6 and joins the primary flow PF to constitute a total flow TF which is the same volume as oil flow 28.

[0027] Still referring to FIG. 1, in the absence of the present invention, filter 5 would filter total flow TF to its micron filter rating at 100% rate. However, by installing the present invention, a volume of oil 13 normally contained by a normally provided oil sump 15 of engine 3 would be filtered continuously by a ratio SF/TF, where flow SF is made to pass through the high efficiency filter 10, and therefore the normally provided volume of oil 13 would be super cleaned continuously during a short period of time.

[0028] Now referring to FIG. 2, the adapter 2 is affixed to engine 3 by an adapter nipple 16 that not only affixes adapter 2 to engine 3 but also provides a point to affix filter 5 which seals against adapter 2 by a sealing means 7 and against a sealing surface SS of adapter 2 which in turn also seals against engine 3 by a scaling means 36.

[0029] Now referring to FIG. 3, it shows adapter nipple 16 which is equipped with a central channel 20 that channels total flow TF towards engine 3. The nipple 16 has the ability to affix, locate, and help seal adapter 2 to engine 3 and is also equipped with a thread 18 and a thread 18. Both threads 18 and 18 are of the same pitch and diameter as a normally provided engine oil filter nipple 40 having a nipple thread 18 so that nipple 16 can match and easily, quickly, and without modifications affix adapter 2 to said engine 3 since threads 18, 18 and 18 are all the same.

[0030] Now referring to FIG. 2, adapter 2 is also equipped with a bypass valve orifice 26, bypass valve orifice 26 can be a ball bearing 32 biased by a calibrated spring 34 to open upon a predetermined calculated pressure for the purposes of routing flow 28 towards filter 5 in case orifice TFO and flow SF stop flowing due to clogging to prevent catastrophic failure of engine 3 due to lubricating oil starvation, bypass valve 32 is also indicated as a bypass valve BV in FIG. 1.

[0031] It is clear to those skilled in the art that the orifice TFO in FIG. 1, which is the same as an orifice 24 in FIG. 2, can be made of smaller diameter, equipped with a check valve of different opening pressures to bias different differential pressures between said points A and G, augmented in numbers, placed near a return port 14 as shown in FIG. 2 to effect a Venturi effect, or even equipped with a electronically controlled variable diameter orifice to bias the differential pressure between hydraulic points A and G in FIG. 1.

[0032] It will be understood that each of the elements described above, or two or more together may also find a useful application in other types of methods differing from the type described above.

[0033] While certain novel features of this invention have been shown and described and will be pointed out in future claims, it is not intended to be limited to the details above, since it will be understood that various omissions, modifications, substitutions and changes in the forms and details of the device illustrated and its operation can be made by those skilled in the art without departing in any way from the spirit of the present invention.