Turbine Wastegate Toroidal Plug Sealing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Internal wastegates in turbochargers face challenges in maintaining effective sealing due to high mechanical stresses and operational conditions such as high temperatures and exhaust pulsations, leading to potential leakage and reliability issues.
Innovation Solution
The design incorporates a wastegate assembly with a wastegate arm and plug featuring a toroidal and conical profile, allowing for contact with the wastegate seat to maintain sealing even with angular and displacement misalignments, ensuring reliable sealing over the component's lifetime.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional linear wastegate plug design is used, then manufacturing is simpler, but sealing reliability deteriorates under high mechanical stress and misalignment conditions
Solution Approach 1:
The wastegate plug incorporates a toroidal profile (curved surface) instead of a linear profile. This curved geometry allows the plug to maintain contact with the wastegate seat under angular and displacement misalignments, ensuring reliable sealing despite misalignment conditions while accommodating high mechanical stresses
2Reliability
If oversized components are used to meet reliability levels, then sealing performance improves, but component size and weight increase
Solution Approach 1:
The invention changes the geometric parameters of the wastegate plug from a traditional linear profile to a toroidal profile with specific curvature characteristics. This parameter change allows the component to maintain sealing effectiveness under misalignment conditions without requiring oversized dimensions, thereby reducing component weight while preserving reliability
3Manufacturing precision
If conventional linear plug profile is used, then manufacturing precision requirements are lower, but sealing effectiveness deteriorates under misalignment
Solution Approach 1:
The toroidal (curved) profile of the wastegate plug provides inherent tolerance to misalignment conditions. The curved geometry allows the plug to self-adjust and maintain contact with the seat even when angular or displacement misalignments occur, ensuring sealing effectiveness without requiring extremely tight manufacturing precision
Data Source
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AI summary
An assembly can include a turbine housing that includes a bore, a wastegate seat and a wastegate passage that extends to the wastegate seat; a bushing configured for receipt by the bore; a rotatable wastegate shaft configured for receipt by the bushing; a wastegate arm extending from the wastegate shaft; and a wastegate plug extending from the wastegate arm where the wastegate plug includes a profile, defined in part by a portion of a torus, for contacting the wastegate seat to cover the wastegate passage. Various other examples of devices, assemblies, systems, methods, etc., are also disclosed.