A Spring for an Electromagnetic Actuator

Abstract

Reciprocating apparatuses such as a displacer in a Stirling engine or Vuilleumier (thermally-driven) heat pump and such as a poppet valve in an internal combustion engine have been known to be built with a mechatronic actuator. The reciprocating element has two springs in compression biased against each other. It has been found that conventional springs in compression introduce losses. A spring is disclosed in which a portion of the coil is wound in a clockwise direction and a portion is wound in a clockwise direction. Also, in reciprocation, the spring is in compression at one end of travel and in tension at the other end of travel.

Claims

1. A reciprocating apparatus, comprising: a stationary housing; a reciprocating element adapted to travel between a first position and a second position with respect to the housing; and a spring system comprising at least one spring with a first end of the spring system coupled to the housing and a second end of the spring system coupled to the reciprocating element wherein: the spring system has a clockwise portion and a counterclockwise portion; and the spring is in tension when the reciprocating element is in the first position and the spring is in compression when the reciprocating element is in the second position.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising: a first electromagnet coupled to the housing at a first location; a second electromagnet coupled to the housing at a second location; a ferromagnetic block coupled to the reciprocating element with the ferromagnetic block arranged between the first and second electromagnets wherein: the spring is in tension and the ferromagnetic block is proximate the first electromagnet when the reciprocating element is in the first position; and the spring is in compression and the ferromagnetic block is proximate the second electromagnet when the reciprocating element is in the second position.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, further comprising: an electronic control unit (ECU) electronically coupled to the first and second electromagnets wherein the ECU commands the first electromagnet to attract the ferromagnetic block at some periods and commands the second electromagnet to attract the ferromagnetic block at other periods.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the reciprocating element is a poppet valve and the housing is a cylinder head of an internal combustion engine.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the reciprocating element is a displacer and the housing comprises a cylinder in which the displacer is adapted to reciprocate.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein: the spring is machined from a tube; the spring has clockwise helical openings over a first portion of the length of the tube; and the spring has counterclockwise helical openings over a second portion of the length of the tube.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein: the spring system comprises a first spring that is wound clockwise, the first spring having a first outer diameter and a predetermined length when the first spring is in its neutral position; the spring system comprises a second spring that is wound counterclockwise, the second spring having a second outer diameter and the predetermined length when the second spring is in its neutral position; the first outer diameter is one of greater than and less than the second outer diameter; when the first outer diameter is greater than the second outer diameter, the second spring is located within the first spring; and when the first outer diameter is less than the second outer diameter, the first spring is located within the second spring.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein: the spring system comprises: a first spring portion that is wound clockwise and has a first length and a second spring portion that is wound counterclockwise and has a second length; and the two springs are arranged with centerlines of the two springs being collinear with the length of the spring system in its neutral position is at least as much as the sum of the first and second lengths.

9. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein: the spring system comprises: a first spring portion that is wound clockwise, has a first length when the first spring portion is in its neutral position, and has two starts; and a second spring portion that is wound counterclockwise, has a second length when the second spring portion is in its neutral position, and has two starts; and the two springs are arranged with centerlines of the two springs being collinear and a length of the spring system in its neutral position is at least as much as the sum of the first and second lengths.

10. The apparatus of claim 9 or 10 wherein a connector piece is provided between the first and second spring portions.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0031] FIG. 1 is an illustration of a prior art poppet valve with a camshaft actuation for a conventional internal combustion engine;

[0032] FIG. 2 is an illustration of a prior art camless valve actuation mechanism for an internal combustion engine;

[0033] FIG. 3 is an illustration of a thermally-driven heat pump having electromagnetic actuators on the hot and cold displacers;

[0034] FIG. 4 is an illustration of the damping of a displacer in a thermally-driven heat pump application using a prior art spring;

[0035] FIG. 5 shows a machined spring in an isometric view;

[0036] FIG. 6 shows the machined spring of FIG. 5 in a cross-sectional view;

[0037] FIG. 7 shows a spring having clockwise and counter clockwise portions;

[0038] FIG. 8 is an illustration of the damping of a displacer in a thermally-driven heat pump application using a spring according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

[0039] FIG. 9 shows another alternative for an electromagnetic actuator arrangement;

[0040] FIG. 10 is an illustration of two conventional coil springs interleaved;

[0041] FIG. 11 is an illustration of a heat engine with coils acting upon a ferromagnetic block to actuate a displacer within the heat engine;

[0042] FIG. 12 is an illustration of a spring of one sense that can be inserted into a spring of the opposite sense; and

[0043] FIG. 13 is a top view of the springs in FIG. 12 showing the starts.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0044] 100441 As those of ordinary skill in the art will understand, various features of the embodiments illustrated and described with reference to any one of the Figures may be combined with features illustrated in one or more other Figures to produce alternative embodiments that are not explicitly illustrated or described. The combinations of features illustrated provide representative embodiments for typical applications. However, various combinations and modifications of the features consistent with the teachings of the present disclosure may be desired for particular applications or implementations. Those of ordinary skill in the art may recognize similar applications or implementations whether or not explicitly described or illustrated.

[0045] One alternative to a conventional coil spring is a machined spring 300, one embodiment of such a spring shown in FIG. 5. Spring 300 may be formed from a billet or a cylinder. The embodiment in FIG. 5 has two helixes in the upper half and two helixes in the lower half defined therein. A first helix 302 has a start 304 and continues downward along the spring with the ending not visible in the view in FIG. 5. A second helix 303 has a start that is 90 degrees displaced from start 304 and has an end 306. The rotation is clockwise as taken looking from end 316 going from start 304. Away from end 316, a third helix 309 has a start that is not visible in FIG. 5 and an end 314. Nested in helix 309, is a fourth helix 308 that has a start 310 and an end (not visible). Starts of helixes 302 and 303 are rotated about 180 degrees with respect to each other as are the ends of helixes 302 and 303 having the same 180-degree displacement. Helixes 308 and 309 have similarly displaced starts and ends. Top 316 of spring 300 has eight threaded holes for affixing the spring to a housing (not shown). A cross-sectional view of spring 300 is shown in FIG. 6.

[0046] Spring 300 is one example of such a machined spring having two helixes in each of the upper and lower portions and where the starts and stops of the helixes are aligned in one of two circumferential positions 180 degrees apart. The number of helixes in the upper portion of the spring may alternatively be one or more than two. The starts and ends of the helixes in the upper half might be offset from those in the bottom half. For example, with two helixes in the upper half, they may start 180 degrees displaced from each other, but then two helixes in the lower half start 90 degrees displaced from the helixes in the upper half in one embodiment. Spring 300 could alternatively be formed by any suitable process, including, but limited to casting and forging.

[0047] An illustration of a spring system in which a first coiled spring portion 340 wound in a counterclockwise wind, when looking from the top end and going from the top to the bottom and a second coiled spring portion 342 wound in a clockwise wind is shown in FIG. 7. Spring portion 342 could alternatively be switched with spring portion 340. (The convention by which clockwise and counterclockwise are defined is defined herein. Regardless of the convention applied, the important matter is that spring portion 340 has an opposite sense with respect to spring portion 342.)

[0048] In the arrangement in FIG. 7, the two spring portions 340 and 342 are affixed to a common-central plate 348. In other embodiments, spring portions 340 and 342 are directly affixed to each other without plate 348. Spring 340 is affixed to an element 344 that is allowed to move, but not to rotate. The lower end of spring 342 is affixed to a completely fixed element 346 (e.g., a housing) that prevents displacement, rotation, bending, etc. Unlike elements 344 and 346, plate 348 is free to rotate. By allowing plate 348 to rotate freely, the friction of the spring end, or in this case ends, due to winding and unwinding is mitigated. Referring back to FIG. 5, a central portion 318 of machined spring 300 shuttles back and forth circumferentially when spring 300 compressed, uncompressed and/or pulled in tension in a periodic fashion. If the machined spring had grooves machined therein in a single sense, at least one end of the spring would rotate. This would disallow fixing the spring on both ends and it would cause friction between the end of the spring and whatever element against which it abuts. Machined spring 300 is symmetric about a plane 320 that bisects spring 300 with plane 320 perpendicular to a central axis 322 of spring 300. Because spring 300 is symmetric, an amount of rotation that an upper half of spring 300 undergoes when being deflected is the same as the amount of rotation that a lower half of spring 300 undergoes under the same deflection.

[0049] In FIG. 8, the displacer within the thermally-driven heat pump is shown to resonate through many cycles 360 before becoming completely damped. This is in contrast with FIG. 4 in which the displacer moves through about one cycle when completely damped. In both FIGS. 4 and 8, the damping is due to the spring as well as due to flow losses in the thermally-driven heat pump system. However, the many cycles of resonance with a spring that accesses both tension and compression, as in FIG. 8, is superior to the overdamped situation of two springs both in compression acting against each other as shown in FIG. 4.

[0050] In FIG. 2, an actuator arrangement is shown in which there is one ferromagnetic block 216 and two coils 250 and 260. In the heat pump illustrated in FIG. 3, the upper displacer has two ferromagnetic blocks 102 and 112 and one electromagnet 92. Another actuator 400 is shown in FIG. 9 (springs and housing not shown) that has a first ferromagnetic block 402 coupled to a second ferromagnetic block 404 via a connector 406. A first coil 408 acts upon ferromagnetic block 402 when energized to pull first ferromagnetic block 402 (and also connector 406 and second ferromagnetic block 404) to first coil 408. Energizing a second coil 410 acts on second ferromagnetic block 404 to pull second ferromagnetic block 404 to second coil 410.

[0051] Spring 300 in FIG. 5 is a multi-start spring. A conventional coil spring can be multi-start as well. Referring to FIG. 1, coil springs 22 include an outer spring with a first diameter and an inner spring of a second diameter that is less than the first diameter. The first and second starts lie in the same plane. Now referring to FIG. 10, two coils 450 and 460 are interleaved. Coils 450 and 460 are of the same diameter with their individual coils interleaved. Start of coil 450 is arranged opposite a start of coil 460 in this embodiment with two coils interleaved. If embodiments in which more coils are interleaved, the starts are evenly arranged circumferentially. In the present disclosure in which the spring system has a portion that is coiled clockwise and a portion that is coiled counterclockwise, spring 22 of FIG. 1 and coils 450 and 460 of FIG. 10 represent only a portion of the total spring system. These representations are simplified to show just a portion of the spring to indicate the multiple coil springs.

[0052] A simplified heat pump or heat engine 500 is shown in FIG. 11. Within cylindrical housing 502, a displacer 504 is caused to reciprocate, as indicated by the double ended arrow in 504. (A heat pump would have two displacers. For simplicity's sake only one displacer is shown in FIG. 10.) Displacer 504 is coupled to a ferromagnetic block 508 via a rod 506. An upper coil 510, shown in cross section, and a lower coil 512, also shown in cross section, can be commanded to act upon block 506. A spring (not shown in the interest of simplicity) is normally provided. In practice, a coil, say coil 510, is activated to cause block 506 to be attracted thereby raising displacer 504. The spring would be compressed and pushing downward on displacer 504 such that when coil 510 is deactivated displacer 504 moves downward. When coil 512 is activated, block 508 moves toward coil 512 pulling displacer 504 downward. The spring (not shown) would be in tension and wanting to pull displacer 504 upward.

[0053] Another spring alternative is shown in FIG. 12 with an outer spring 550 that is wound with a particular sense, counterclockwise if considered from top to bottom. A spring 552 with a smaller outside diameter has the opposite sense, clockwise, from top to bottom. Spring 552 can be placed within spring 550. The material and thickness of the wire to make the coil of spring 552 are chosen so that spring 552 has nearly the same spring constant as spring 550.

[0054] In FIG. 13, a top view of the nested springs shows a start 560 of spring 550 and a start 562 for spring 552. Because the springs are both in compression and tension, the ends of the springs, starts 560 and 562, are captured to allow tension to be developed in the springs.

[0055] While the best mode has been described in detail with respect to particular embodiments, those familiar with the art will recognize various alternative designs and embodiments within the scope of the following claims. While various embodiments may have been described as providing advantages or being preferred over other embodiments with respect to one or more desired characteristics, one or more characteristics may be compromised to achieve desired system attributes, which depend on the specific application and implementation. These attributes include, but are not limited to: cost, strength, durability, life cycle cost, marketability, appearance, packaging, size, serviceability, weight, manufacturability, ease of assembly, etc. The embodiments described herein that are characterized as less desirable than other embodiments or prior art with respect to one or more characteristics are not outside the scope of the disclosure and may be desirable for particular applications.