Patent Application
20240084724
The present invention relates to apparatuses that provide full flow and complementary advanced fine filtration to engines or hydraulic systems.
The benefits of Bypass Filtration, or Advanced Filtration, through research by the US Department of Energy through the Argonne Laboratory, SAE, and others, yield an impressive array of benefits, among them: increased oil service interval. extended full flow oil filter service interval, reduced emissions reduced, reduced friction and parasitic energy losses, lower engine overhaul costs, fuel efficiency gains, and environmental collateral benefits.
Many filtration devices have been invented avoiding extensive external hardware or delivering bypass grade filtration using external hardware and complicated setups. The present invention delivers the desired filtration by using a minimal design combination media using two media filter grades and harnessing natural and generated differential pressures for its operation.
Prior art examples are found in the following US patents: U.S. Pat. No. 2,407,190, to William O. Tait, for a Filter for fluid flow systems, U.S. Pat. No. 2,559,267 to Charles E. Winslow et al., for a Filter, U.S. Pat. No. 2,843,268 to Walter V. Kennedy, for a Combined Full-flow and part-flow oil filters, U.S. Pat. No. 3,021,954, to Allen Hoffman, for a Combination full-flow and by-pass filter, U.S. Pat. No. 3,021,955 to John Joyce, for a Filter unit with restrictor means, U.S. Pat. No. 4,058,459 to John W. Griffin, for a Liquid filter apparatus, U.S. Pat. No. 4,832,836 to Leslie Selsdon, for a Series filter, U.S. Pat. No. 7,090,773, to Meddock and Swanson for a Coaxial full-flow and bypass oil filter; U.S. Pat. No. 6,951,606, to Cousineau and Allen for an Auxiliary filtration system. More examples for combining full flow and high-density filtering have been integrated in one single unit, such as shown in Dahm, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,036,755. However, such a filtering system is not made in such a manner that is easily connected to the standard engine filtering system. Beardsley, U.S. Pat. No. 2,680,520 shows a full-flow and part-flow filter combination. It has the same inherent problems as the previously described full-flow and part-flow filters. These problems may be exhibited by a recently developed combination full flow and a bypass grade Teflon sintered disc, with a rather small loading area for the bypass section, generously estimated to be limited to a cross section of the spin-on combination filter, such as U.S. Pat. No. 6,605,215, to Assion for a Hybrid spin-on oil filter, and U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,048,848, 8,123,942, and 8,241,494 to Assion for, again, a Hybrid spin-on oil filter and similar configurations.
Other examples can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 6,666,968, to Smith et al. for a Fluid filtration apparatus; U.S. Pat. No. 5,843,284, to Waters et al. for Two-stage oil bypass filter device, U.S. Pat. No. 5,695,637, to Jiang et al. for a Combination full flow and bypass filter with venturi nozzle, U.S. Pat. No. 6,488,848 to Smith for a Cleanable filter with ported cylinder adjacent screen, U.S. Pat. No. 10,195,553 to Baxter for an Oil filter apparatus, U.S. Pat. No. 8,282,821 for an Oil filter assembly and associated filter element to Maier et al., U.S. Pat. No. 9,815,004 for a Filter with a liquid drain valve to Uhl, et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 6,322,697 for an Oil filter assembly to Hacker, et al.
Further examples of prior art include U.S. Pat. No. 2,843,268A, Fram Corp. for a Combined full-flow and part-flow oil filters; EP1108456A1, Nelson Industries, Inc. for a Combination full flow and bypass filter with venturi nozzle; U.S. Pat. No. 6,350,379B1, Dana Corporation for a Dual filter with flow mixer; U.S. Pat. No. 20030226795A1, Baldwin Filters, Inc., for an Environmentally friendly dual lube venturi filter cartridge; U.S. Pat. No. 6,761,822B1, Dana Corporation for a Dual filter with flow mixer and centrifugal separator; U.S. Pat. No. 20050126965A1, Meddock Leroy J. for a Coaxial full-flow and bypass oil filter; U.S. Pat. No. 20070261377A1 to Klug Jerry J for a Spin-on filter arrangement and methods; U.S. Pat. No. 20080078716A1 to Hepo Filters, Inc. for a Bypass oil filter system and method of installing same; U.S. Pat. No. 7,704,397B2 to Filtran LLC for a Coaxial full-flow and bypass oil filter having cap with blades; U.S. Pat. No. 7,704,396B2 to Filtran LLC for a Coaxial full-flow and bypass oil filter with spring/gasket arrangement; U.S. Pat. No. 3,021,955A to Purolator Products Inc. for a Filter unit with restrictor means; U.S. Pat. No. 4,869,820A to Gary Karlin for a Filter apparatus for fluids with co-axially stacked filter elements; EP0631803A1 to Fleetguard, Inc. for a Combination full flow and bypass filter with venturi nozzle; U.S. Pat. No. 30,226,795A1 to Baldwin Filters, Inc. for an Environmentally friendly dual lube venturi filter cartridge full-flow and bypass oil filter; U.S. Pat. No. 20050252838A1 to Baldwin Filters, Inc. for a Fluid filtration apparatus and method; U.S. Pat. No. 20060037906A1 to Assion Norbert for a Liquid filter assembly; U.S. Pat. No. 20060278570A1 to Meddock Leroy J. for a Coaxial full-flow and bypass oil filter apparatus and method; U.S. Pat. No. 9,109,478 to Reinosa for a Method and apparatus for a parallel bypass filtration system for internal combustion engines and similar systems U.S. Pat. No. 9,932,868B2 to Adan Reinosa for an Apparatus for providing fine filtration to hydraulic systems and internal combustion engines; U.S. Pat. No. 10,913,019 to Adan Reinosa and Laura M. Reinosa for an Apparatus for providing supplemental advanced filtration.
The present invention, a combination full flow and advanced filtration apparatus in combination with well-known normally provided filter enclosures, has many advantages over previous art: quick and simple bolt-on installation, inexpensive to manufacture, a minimal design, quick and simple connection with no hydraulic conduits needed, no engine modifications needed, no need to encroach the limited engine bay space, quick and easy filter element replacement, no need for a parasitic oil flow or side stream oil from the engine or hydraulic system, and in one application the full flow filter is reusable, these attributes of the present invention solve disadvantages found in prior art traditional bypass systems.
In spin-on oil filter equipped engines or hydraulic systems, the hybrid filter element apparatus of the present invention, manufactured in combination with the well-known structure of a spin on oil filter, simply replaces the normal spin-on oil filter element and then attaches to the normally provided engine threaded oil filter stud point of attachment. In canister filters the hybrid filter element apparatus is manufactured to replace the well-known normally provided filter cartridge inside the normally provided canister housing. In the case of renewable filters, a reusable hybrid filter element apparatus, or a non-reusable hybrid filter element apparatus simply is replaced inside a well-known normally provided reusable filter enclosure.
The hybrid filter element apparatus is substantially shaped as a thick-walled cylinder having at least two filter sections: a full flow filter section, made with full flow filtering media; an advanced filtration section, bypass grade in old school parlance, made with a high efficiency advanced filtration filter media. The two sections are sealingly assembled axially to form a thick-walled cylinder.
The hybrid filter element apparatus is equipped with a downstream perforated inner tube disposed at a downstream hydraulic point of the advanced filtration media element and the full flow filter section. The inner tube is equipped with a plurality of flow control orifices whose collective area is designed to be smaller than the outlet flow area into the engine or system. This restriction forces, in part as a component of a net total differential pressure, the total flow to split into two flows: a larger flow that goes through the full flow filter element, a full flow to receive full flow filtration, and another, a smaller parallel flow, a continuum of peripheral flows around the high efficiency advanced filtration element, that are diverted, due to the pressure differential created in part by the tube orifices restriction, through a path that is forced to flow through the advanced filtration filter element. The parallel flows are further aided by differential pressure contributors such as the pressure differential created by the full flow upper element filter media as it loads and plugs during its service interval, inherent filter structures, inherent frictional and viscous flow losses, pump pressure fluctuations, temperature, among others.
The parallel flows across the advanced filtration element may be controlled by a plurality of flow control orifices, drilled around the inner tube, that limit the amount of flow though the advanced filtration element since the role of the lower filter is to slowly filter the oil at a higher filtering efficiency, not to perform the function of the full flow filter, the full flow filtration element.
Once the diverted oil goes through the lower filter advanced filtration filter media it rejoins the flow through said flow control orifices to reconstitute the total flow into the normally provided engine threaded engine oil filter stud, or canister point of discharge and into a lubrication gallery inlet of an engine or hydraulic system. The total flow into the engine is cleaned to a ratio of (Parallel Flows/Total Flow) during operation.
The hybrid filter element, comprised of at least two sections, is made to provide advanced filtration by having a set of differential pressures acting across the advanced filtration element and is generated during use, singly or in combination, by:
The net differential pressure promotes flow across the relatively tighter, when compared to the full flow filter element, advanced filtration media of the advanced filtration element. It is proper to point out at this point that using the traditional bypass media will not flow using the present invention strategy because the need of high pressure, and only when you recognize the unexpected fact that synthetic media can be used for bypass applications the present invention outperforms the traditional application of old school bypass filtration tight media.
The high efficiency cartridge filter element of the present invention works by design at a low pressure drop across its media element, less than 10 PSI. This is opposed to the traditional bypass filtration media systems requiring much higher than 10 PSI, due to its tight pore construction. The present invention uses synthetic microfibers, and it is therefore more energy efficient than traditional systems requiring said high-pressure gradient to effect flow across it. The ability of this synthetic media to offer a low resistance to flow has been largely gone unrecognized by the myopic and stubborn bypass filtration industry which is stuck in the mantra: “a bypass filter needs a high-pressure gradient to flow”. Bucking the trend of the industry, the present invention disproves this mantra by the unexpected result of flowing oil, or hydraulic fluid, across the synthetic media at low pressures. This unexpected observation and application opens the application of a minimum design such as is shown in the present invention. In fact, just placing the two sections in parallel without any other piece of hardware will eventually flow through the advanced filtration media as in the limit the differential pressure across the full flow filter increases as it loads with dirt and progressively plugs, thereby increasing the differential pressure across the advanced filtration media section.
It should be noted that this high efficiency media is not intended to perform the duty of a full flow filter therefore a plurality of flow limiting orifices may be provided to reduce or regulate the parallel oil flow across it. The key attribute that should be noted is that the filter media requires a low pressure, less than 10 PSI, as mentioned above as an unexpected benefit, to effect slow and steady flow across the media at all engine operating conditions, i.e.: across all RPM rotational and mechanical loading conditions, flowing even at idle oil pressures, usually 1 Bar (14.7 PSI) and across all pressures until redline RPM, as opposed to traditional bypass grade media systems that begins to effect flow at substantially higher RPM from idle RPM.
The hybrid filter element can also be designed such that the upper filter section is made using a reusable stainless-steel mesh, and the lower filter is just a replacement element, furthering its environmentally friendly function. A bypass valve, whose function is to open at a predetermined pressure, may also be provided should the combined filter elements, become plugged or obstructed to flow i.e.: due to very cold oil, plugged filters, allowing unfiltered oil into the engine to prevent engine damage when housed inside a spin-on filter form, reusable filter enclosure form, or canister filter form. The bypass valve is mentioned here for completeness as it is not part of the filter apparatus but it works in combination with it, but not essential.
The assembled unit, as in the spin on filter case and reusable filter case, simply screws in the point of connection of the normally provided threaded oil filter stud, all the plumbing associated with the traditional prior art bypass filter installation is eliminated, as is the energy and labor-intensive process of seeking for a pressure point and an oil return path back to the engine.
The high efficiency filter is desired to be within a range down to below one micron to 50 microns in cross-sectional area, and preferably made with synthetic filtering media or similar. It is also desirable to have said filter endowed with chemicals or/and additives that can be time released to lengthen the oil or hydraulic fluid service interval.
Given those reasons above, the present invention is more resourceful, functional, and its strategy of connection leads it to be more readily accepted by the buying public, saving time, labor, the environment, and our domestic natural resources.
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It will be understood that each of the elements described above, or two or more together may also find a useful application in other types of methods differing from the type described above.
While certain novel features of this invention have been shown and described and will be pointed out in future claims, it is not intended to be limited to the details above, since it will be understood that various omissions, modifications, substitutions and changes in the forms and details of the device illustrated, and its operation can be made by those skilled in the art without departing in any way from the spirit of the present invention.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 63372757 | Mar 2022 | US |
