Crankcase Relief Valve with Annular Flame Arrestor Gas Redirection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current explosion relief valves for engine crankcases often misdirect exhaust gases, posing safety risks due to potential ignition of heat-sensitive or flammable objects, and inefficient heat transfer in flame arrestor designs.
Innovation Solution
An improved explosion relief valve with a sinuous-shaped valve plate and an annular flame arrestor constructed from layered metal sheets with specific aperture patterns, ensuring efficient gas release and flame suppression while redirecting exhaust gases safely back towards the engine, eliminating the need for external directional covers.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If a cup shaped valve plate is used to direct exhaust gas flow, then the flow is directed away from the engine, but this causes gases to be biased in a direction away from the engine which is unsafe due to potential ignition of heat-sensitive or flammable objects
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of directing exhaust gases away from the engine as conventional cup-shaped valves do, this invention inverts the approach by using a sinuous-shaped valve plate to redirect gases back toward the engine. The sinuous geometry creates flow patterns that guide exhaust gases in a controlled path toward the engine rather than away from it, eliminating the safety hazard of igniting external flammable objects while maintaining effective venting functionality
2Reliability
If traditional flame arrestor designs are used, then flame propagation is suppressed, but heat transfer efficiency is reduced and flame arrestor mass is increased
Solution Approach 1:
The flame arrestor is segmented into multiple thin, perforated metal sheets stacked in sequence rather than using a single thick structure. Each sheet contains a pattern of perforations that allows controlled gas passage while providing flame quenching surfaces. This segmentation achieves effective flame propagation suppression through multiple incremental quenching zones while minimizing overall mass and maximizing heat transfer efficiency by maintaining thin sheet geometries with high surface area-to-volume ratios
Solution Approach 2:
The flame arrestor utilizes perforated metal sheets that function as porous structures, allowing exhaust gases to pass through while providing numerous surfaces for flame quenching. The perforated geometry creates a controlled porous medium that enables efficient heat transfer between the exhaust gases and the metal surfaces, effectively suppressing flame propagation while maintaining low mass and high thermal conductivity
3Object-affected harmful factors
If external directional covers are used to redirect exhaust gases, then gases are contained from erupting away from the engine, but device complexity is increased
Solution Approach 1:
The directional cover function is merged with the valve plate itself. The sinuous-shaped valve plate integrates both the valve sealing function and the exhaust gas redirection function into a single component. By combining these functions, the need for separate external directional covers is eliminated, reducing device complexity while maintaining effective containment of exhaust gases and directing them safely toward the engine
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The design effectively redirects and cools exhaust gases, halting flame propagation and enhancing heat transfer efficiency with reduced flame arrestor mass, ensuring safer venting and improved safety by containing gases within the engine's vicinity.
Implementation Method 1
This valve includes a flame arrestor with a single perforated metal screen and a porous metal ribbon with a sinuous shape that is positioned between the metal screen and the center axis of the valve. Similar to the corrugated metal valves discussed above, this valve arrest flames by forcing the flame front caused by an explosion to travel through the perforations of both the porous ribbon and the metal screen, effectively choking out flame propagation while still allowing exhaust gas to be released.
Implementation Method 2
an annular flame arrestor extending from the upper surface of the carrier plate to the lower surface of the cap
Data Source
AI summary
An explosion relief valve for a crankcase of an engine includes a carrier plate, a cap, and an annular flame arrestor. The carrier plate includes a valve plate that has a sinuous shape for redirecting flame back into the engine. The flame arrestor includes a plurality of layers of smooth metal sheets, with each layer having a pattern of apertures that is different in size and spacing than the pattern of apertures of its adjacent layer. The apertures of each layer are partially, and only partially, aligned with the perforations of its adjacent layers. The layers are laid flush against each other to minimize or eliminate air space between the layers, leaving only the air channels existing between the apertures of the metal sheet layers as passageways for exhaust gases to be released from the valve.