Patent Application
20080035081
A preferred embodiment of the invention is now described in detail. Referring to the drawings, like numbers indicate like parts throughout the views. As used in the description herein and throughout the claims, the following terms take the meanings explicitly associated herein, unless the context clearly dictates otherwise: the meaning of “a,” “an,” and “the” includes plural reference, the meaning of “in” includes “in” and “on.”
As shown in
The cylinder liner 100 includes a cylindrical member 110 that defines an elongated cylinder bore 32. The cylinder member 110 has an outer surface 30 that has a diameter that allows the cylindrical member 110 to be fitted into the cylinder opening 22 so as to form a coolant jacket 38 between the outer surface 30 of the cylindrical member 110 and the longitudinal surface 16. The outer surface 30 of the cylindrical member 110 includes an upper portion 114 that plugs the groove coolant port 28.
A plurality of cooling fins 120 is also disposed on the outer surface 30 of the cylinder liner 100. The cooling fins are disposed so as to be in contact with the coolant in the coolant jacket 38. In one embodiment, the cooling fins 120 are disposed circumferentially about the outer surface. In one embodiment, the outer surface 30 of the cylinder liner defines a plurality of spaced apart circumferential grooves 122. The raised space between each groove 122 defines the cooling fins 120.
In one embodiment, the cylinder is made as a replacement cylinder that is retrofitted into a coolant groove-type internal combustion engine. When retrofitting a cylinder liner, an existing cylinder liner is removed from the engine, thereby exposing the cylinder opening 22 and the groove coolant port 28. The groove coolant port is then plugged by placing the replacement cylinder liner 100 into the engine. The cylinder liner may be made by machining a piece of stock to form a cylindrical shape that is complimentary in shape to the cylinder opening 22. Then a cylindrical piston bore 32 passage is bored through the cylindrical shape such that the cylindrical piston bore 32 is complimentary in diameter to the piston 32. The plurality of circumferentially disposed cooling fins 120 is then machined, e.g. with a metal lathe, into the outer surface of the cylinder liner by cutting circumferential grooves 122 into the outer surface 30 of the cylinder liner 100.
The above described embodiments, while including the preferred embodiment and the best mode of the invention known to the inventor at the time of filing, are given as illustrative examples only. It will be readily appreciated that many deviations may be made from the specific embodiments disclosed in this specification without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Accordingly, the scope of the invention is to be determined by the claims below rather than being limited to the specifically described embodiments above.
