Plastic Separator Plate with Spokes for Oil Mist Separation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Oil mist separators for piston engines reduce environmental impact but increase engine weight and material costs, leading to higher fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.
Innovation Solution
A disk-shaped separator plate with conical surfaces and injection molded from plastic, featuring a unique design with ring areas and spokes to facilitate assembly and reduce material usage, allowing for faster separation of oil mist during engine startup while minimizing weight and production costs.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional oil mist separators using rotating separator plates are used, then oil mist separation effectiveness is improved, but engine weight and material costs increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the material parameter from traditional metal or heavy plastic to a lightweight plastic material specifically designed for injection molding. This allows the separator plate to maintain its functional properties for oil mist separation while significantly reducing the weight and material costs, directly resolving the contradiction between separation effectiveness and engine weight
Solution Approach 2:
The separator plate is designed with a segmented structure featuring multiple spokes radiating from a central receptacle, creating multiple separation zones. This segmentation allows the plate to be thinner and lighter while maintaining effective separation coverage, as each spoke creates its own separation zone rather than requiring a solid heavy plate
2Weight of moving object
If separator plates are made from plastic material, then material costs and weight are reduced, but manufacturing precision requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The injection molding process is designed to be self-aligning, where the molded separator plate automatically achieves the correct positioning and dimensional accuracy through the molding process itself. The plate's geometry and the molding tooling are designed so that precision is built-in during manufacturing rather than requiring post-processing or extremely tight mold tolerances, thus reducing manufacturing precision requirements while maintaining lightweight construction
3Ease of manufacture
If the separator plate is designed with multiple ring areas and spokes, then assembly ease is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple functional features into a single integrated injection-molded component. The separator plate combines the receptacle for the drive shaft, the radial spokes for gas flow distribution, and the conical surfaces for oil mist separation all in one piece. This merging eliminates the need for separate parts and assembly operations, making assembly easy while the overall structure remains relatively simple despite having multiple functional zones
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 solution effectively reduces the environmental impact and weight of piston engines, improving the CO2 balance by enhancing separation efficiency and reducing material costs through optimized design and manufacturing processes.
Implementation Method 1
an oil mist separator working according to the centrifuge principle was proposed... the blow-by gases meet rapidly rotating conical separator plates, which rotate with a shaft... Oil droplets accumulate on the rotating separator plates and are then flung against the housing wall
Data Source
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AI summary
A separator plate (1) having a receptacle (3) for a drive shaft which defines an axis of rotation (2), and having a first annular region radially adjacent to the receptacle (3), a second annular region (20) radially adjacent to the first annular region and a third annular region (30) radially adjacent to the second annular region (20) can be produced particularly easily if the second annular region (20) has a plurality of spokes (21) that connect the first and the third annular region (10, 30) to one another and there are flow channels (22) extending in the axial direction between the spokes (21).