US1981786A - Internal combustion engine - Google Patents

Description

Nqv. 20, 1934. M. J. FINNEGAN INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE Filed Dec. 18, 1933 INVfiTOR ATT Patented Nov. 20,1934

" UNITED STATES COMBUSTION ENGINE Ma'rtin Finnegan, Bloomfield, N. 1., assignor to Eclipse Aviation Corporation, East' Orange,

N. 1., a corporation of New Jersey Application December 18, 1933, Serial No. 703,016

6 Claims. (01. 60-13) This invention relates to internal combustion engines, and more particularly to starting mechanism for such engines. a

An object of the invention is to provide, in com- 5" bination with two or more engines, a system or method of interconnecting said-engines in such a manner that energy may be drawn from one for the purpose of starting the other or others. In the preferred embodiment, as shown, the energy drawn from the first engine is in the form of the fluid pressure inherent in the exhaust gases discharged from the exhaust manifold of the engine. I

Afurther feature of the invention is the provision of means operable at will to deflect exhaust gasesor'other energized-fluid from one engine to another, or as herein shown, to the starting mechanism associated with such other engine, thereby energizing such starting mechanism .sufliciently to insure a starting of said other engine upon the transfer of the energy from the starting mechanism' to the crank-shaft, orassociated rotatable part.

The invention is'not limited to the use of any specific forni of starting mechanism, but those types which employ aninertia element or flywheel are particularly ;well suited for use in the herein described system, for the reason that such flywheel or inertia element is capable of receiving energy at a gradual rate for subsequent transfer to the engine at a much more rapid rate, thereby exerting the necessary high torque required to turn over the larger sizes of engines, such as are used in aircraft practice.

Inertia starters of the type just described are known in the art, and the form reproduced in the accompanying drawing is shown in the patent to Raymond P. No. 1,691,820 and in many others of the same patentee. Such starters include, in addition to the above described flywheel, a gear train and an engine -engagi g clutch located at the low speed end of the gear train, the flywheel being located at the high speed end. Such starters also include is for the purpose of illustration only, and is not designed as a definition of the limits of the invention, reference being had for this purpose to .away and sectioned, of one of the starting units in its relation to the associated engine crank-case and crank-shaft.

In the drawing, each engine is shown as mounted in a housing having a rearwardly extending flange serving for attachment of a section of the housing of the associated starting unit, the starting units for the respective engines being indi-' cated by the characters 10, 11, and 12, respec-- tively, and fastening means for the starter12 being indicated at 13 in Fig. 2 as taking the form of a plurality of attaching screws passing into the wall of the mounting flange 14 of the engine 17, it being understood that the starters l0 and 11 are attached to similar flanges 14. on the engines 16 and 15, respectively. The crank-shaft or associated rotatable part 19 of the engine 1'! w is adapted to be cranked for starting the same and carries on its end a dog clutch element21 for cooperation with a complemental clutch element 22 projecting from the forward end of the casing of the starter 12 and normally out of engagement with the cooperating clutch element 21 as shown,

the means for maintaining the clutch element22 in this disengaged position being preferably a spring of the type shown in .the Lansing patent above identified.

A small flywheel 24, a portion of which is shown in section in Fig; 2, is preferably mounted in the mannerindicated in the aforesaid Lansing patent for rotation about an axis coincident with the axis of rotation of the clutch 22 and is adapted to impart such rotation (but at a greatly reduced speed) to the clutch member 22 through the instrunge'ntality of a gear train which may be similar to that shown in the aforesaid Len sing patent and which (in common with the other parts not shown in; detail) forms no part, per se, of, the present invention. An operating rod 28 connectsat one end with the clutch 22 and is shiftable axially to the left as viewed in Fig. 2 to engage the clutch 22 with the clutch 21, upon actuation of the bell-crank 29 projecting from the housing and connecting at one end with a link under the control of the operator, and at its other end with the rock-shaft 30 which in turn imparts the axial movement above described to the rod 28 and the clutch 22, all aspointed out in greater detail in the Lansing Patent No. 1,691,820.

For starting manually, a shaft 42 projects from the housing to receive a hand-crank, and its other end connects with the gear train for acceleration of the flywheel 24 in the manner explained in the aforesaid Lansing patent, and by this means, if desired, the corresponding starter 10 of engine 16 may be first energized and the engine 16 started in operation by the energy thus stored in said starter 10. After this engine 16 has been started (in this or any other desired manner) the starting of the other engines 1'7 and 15 may be effected in sequence by operation of the means now to be described:

Fitting over the end of section 51 of the exhaust pipe for engine 16 is a two-way connector 52 including a valve 53-of the pivoted flap type, normally occupying the position indicated in dash lines, but movable to the full-line position when it is desired to transfer the energy of the'exhaust gases to the starter 12 on engine 17, for the purpose of starting the latter engine. Such movement may be effected by any suitable manual control, such as link 55 and hand-rod 54. A similar valve 56 in a similar two-way connector 5'7 is controlled by a similar hand-rod 58, and serves to control the transfer of energy from engine 1'7 to a flexible connector 59 serving as a means for delivering such energy to any other starter unit, such as the unit 11 of engine 15, or even back to the unit 10, if its associated engine 16 has in the meantime stalled, and is in need of recranking.

Any suitable means may be employed for transferring the energy of the exhaust gases of the working, or mother engine, to the flywheel of each starter unit to be energized, but as shown this is accomplished by providing a series of vanes 61 on each flywheel, and by providing each starter housing with one or more inclined inlet passages, or nozzles, 62 into each of which is inserted a flexible hose 59 or a more rigid conduit 63, whose other end, in either case, communicates with the exhaust conduit 51 of the mother engine. Preferably, for each inlet 62 there is an exhaust passage 65, whereby the gases, after entering the buckets or vanes 61 and exerting a rotational effect upon the flywheel, may escape from the unit. By this means the flywheel is accelerated, and when the desired speed is reached the operator actuates bell-crank 29 to mesh (engage) clutch 22, 21 and thereby cause a cranking of the engine, demeshing being brought about thereafter by any suitable means, such as that disclosed in detail in the Lansing patent above identified.

It will be apparent that the flywheel is in effect a turbine rotor, or turbo flywheel, and that the vanes 61 constitute, in effect, turbine blades against which the exhaust gases act and react to produce rotation of the flywheel. The use of turbine vanes on the flywheel of an inertia starter is not new, but it is believed to be new to utilize fluid energy from a mother engine for the purpose of directly energizing one or more engine starters as a means of imparting initial rotation to the other engines, which engines are in all other respects wholly independent of the mother engine, and may even be installed on separate vehicles. The appended claims, therefore, are not limited to the flywheel construction shown, nor even (in every instance) to the use of such a flywheel in any of the starting units; and only certain of the claims are limited to employing exhaust gases as the preferred form of fluid energy.

What is claimed is:

1. In combination with a pair of internal combustion engines, one having an exhaust conduit, an inertia starter mounted adjacent the other of said engines, said starter including an engine engaging member and a flywheel connected therewith, exhaust gas receiving means for actuating said flywheel, and means for causing exhaust gases taken from said conduit to be discharged against said exhaust gas receiving means to ac-= celerate the flywheel to high speed prior to movement of said engine engaging member to engine engaging position.

2. In combination with a plurality of internal combustion engines, one having an exhaust conduit, an inertia starter mounted adjacent each of the other of said internal combustion engines and each including an engine engaging member and a flywheel connected therewith, exhaust gas receiving means for actuating said flywheel, and means for directing exhaust gases taken from said conduit against any selected one of said exhaust gas receiving means to accelerate the corresponding fiywheel to high'speed prior to movement of the corresponding engine engaging member to engine engaging position.

3. In combination with a plurality of internal combustion engines, one having an exhaust conduit, an inertia starter mounted adjacent each of the other of said internal combustion engines and each including an engine engaging member and a flywheel connected therewith, exhaust gas receiving means associated with each of said flywheels 'for actuation thereof, and means for discharging exhaust gases from either of said engines against the exhaust gas receiving means of the starter associated with the other engine, to accelerate the corresponding flywheel to high speed prior to movement of the corresponding engine engaging member to engine engaging position.

4. In combination with a pair of internal combustion engines, one having an exhaust conduit, an inertia starter mounted adjacent the other of said engines, said starter including a flywheel, an engine engaging member, driven by said flywheel, turbine vanes extending from said flywheel, and means for conducting gases from said exhaust conduit to the spaces between successive vanes, to energize said flywheel.

5. In combination with a pair of internal combustion engines, one having an exhaust conduit, a starter mounted adjacent the other, said starter including an engine engaging member and a driving member therefor, exhaust gas receiving means for actuating said starter, and means for conducting gases from said exhaust conduit to said exhaust gas receiving means, to energize the starter.

6. In combination with a pair of internal combustion engines, one having an energized fluid conduit, a starter mounted adjacent the other, said starter including an engine engaging memher and a driving member therefor, fluid receiving means for actuating said driving member, and means for conducting fluid from said energized fluid conduit to said fluid receiving means, ,to energize the driving member of the starter.

MARTIN J. FINNEGAN.

Hill

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