Patent Grant
11199191
This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. § 119 to Korean Patent Application No. 10-2017-0088390, filed on Jul. 12, 2017, in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes.
The following disclosure relates to an electric water pump and a method of manufacturing the same, and more particularly, to an electric water pump of which productivity, maintainability, and use convenience may be improved by simplifying a production process through a change in a structure, and a method of manufacturing the same.
An electric water pump (EWP), which is a pump driven by a motor controlled by a separate apparatus, is mainly used to circulate a coolant. The electric water pump may determine a flow rate of the coolant regardless of a rotational speed of the engine, may decrease required power of 60 to 70% as compared with a mechanical water pump, and is simple in terms of a structure since it is driven by the motor rather than a belt. Therefore, the electric water pump has been recently used widely in a vehicle.
In the related art, Korean Patent Publication No. 10-1332853 (entitled “Electric Water Pump with Cooling Unit for Vehicles”, published on Nov. 27, 2013, and hereinafter referred as Related Art 1) discloses the electric water pump.
As illustrated in
The electric water pump illustrated in
In addition, since the external terminal penetrates through the cover to connect the control substrate and the motor to each other, foreign material may be introduced into a gap between the external terminal and the cover, and when debugging or repair is performed on the control substrate, the debugging or maintenance should be performed after releasing electrical connection between the external power supply, the external terminal, and the control substrate and removing the cover, and it is thus inconvenient for a user to perform such a work.
An embodiment of the present disclosure is directed to providing an electric water pump capable of being easily manufactured, being economical, and facilitating maintenance of a control substrate controlling the electric water pump by simplifying a manufacturing process through a structural change of an external terminal and an internal terminal installed in the electric water pump, and a method of manufacturing the same.
In one general aspect, an electric water pump includes: a pump housing accepting a motor therein; an acceptor having a cylindrical shape of which one side is opened and formed at one side of the pump housing; a control substrate installed in the acceptor; an external terminal formed of a conductor and penetrating through the acceptor to electrically connect the control substrate to an external power supply; and an internal terminal formed of a conductor and penetrating through the pump housing and the acceptor to electrically connect the motor and the control substrate to each other.
The electric water pump may further include a heat transfer portion installed between the control substrate and the pump housing.
The electric water pump may further include a cover installed at one side of the acceptor so as to cover the control substrate.
The acceptor, the external terminal, and the internal terminal may be manufactured through insert-injection-molding.
In another general aspect, a method of manufacturing an electric water pump includes: a previous manufacturing step of manufacturing a pump housing and an acceptor, the acceptor being manufactured so that an external terminal and an internal terminal penetrate through the acceptor and one ends of the external terminal and the internal terminal are positioned at an outer portion of the acceptor and the other ends thereof are positioned at an inner portion of the acceptor; an assembling step of installing components of the electric water pump including a motor in the pump housing, assembling the acceptor to one side of the pump housing, and connecting one end of the internal terminal to the motor; a control substrate installing step of installing a control substrate in the acceptor; and a cover installing step of installing a cover so as to cover the control substrate.
In the control substrate installing step, the control substrate may be installed after a heat transfer portion is installed at one side of the acceptor.
In the control substrate installing step, the control substrate may be installed using press fitting.
In the control substrate installing step, after the control substrate is installed, the control substrate may be screwed so that one end portion of a bolt penetrates through the control substrate and is in contact with the pump housing, and the bolt and a ground of the control substrate may be connected to each other.
Hereinafter, an electric water pump according to an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.
The pump housing 100, which is a kind of case, may accept components required for driving the electric water pump, including a motor, therein. An example of the components accepted in the pump housing 100 may include the motor, a shaft 111, and an impeller (not illustrated).
The motor may include a stator 113 and a rotor 112 illustrated in
As illustrated in
The acceptor 200 has a cylindrical shape of which upper and lower portions are opened, and is fitted and assembled into the upper side of the pump housing 100. The acceptor 200 is fitted into a protruding portion of an upper portion of the pump housing 100, and when the pump housing 100 and the acceptor 200 are coupled to each other, an O-ring 700 may be fitted between surfaces of the pump housing 100 and the acceptor 200 in contact with each other. Since the acceptor 200 has the cylindrical shape, when the acceptor 200 is fitted onto the pump housing 100, an upper surface of the pump housing 100 is exposed to an inner portion of the acceptor 200.
The control substrate 300 is fitted into a central portion of the acceptor 200 and is installed on the exposed upper surface of the pump housing 100, and a heat transfer portion 600 may be installed between the control substrate 300 and the pump housing 100. The heat transfer portion 600 may be formed of a material such as silicon having high thermal conductivity, and serves as a kind of passage discharging heat generated from the control substrate 300 to the outside.
The heat discharged through the heat transfer portion 600 is transferred to the pump housing 100, and the pump housing 100 may also be formed of a material such as aluminum having high thermal conductivity to serve as a kind of heat sink absorbing and dissipating the heat generated from the control substrate 300, thereby preventing a malfunction and a fault of the control substrate 300.
The control substrate 300 is a kind of printed circuit board (PCB) on which a circuit is printed in order to supply power to the electric water pump according to the present disclosure and control the electric water pump according to the present disclosure, and may be electrically connected to the motor, more specifically, the stator 113 included in the motor to control the power applied to the stator 113, thereby adjusting a rotation level of the rotor 112 and the shaft 111.
As illustrated in
Although not illustrated in the drawing, a plurality of external terminals 400 may be formed.
As illustrated in
When the pump housing 100 and the acceptor 200 are coupled to each other, the internal terminal 500 is inserted into the pump housing 100 and is connected to the stator 113 of the motor, such that the control substrate 300 and the stator 113 may be electrically connected to each other.
Hereinafter, a method of manufacturing an electric water pump according to the present disclosure will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. Since a method of manufacturing an electric water pump according to the present disclosure to be described below corresponds to a method of manufacturing the electric water pump described above, components denoted by the same names and reference numerals as those of the electric water pump are considered as the same components as those of the electric water pump.
The method of manufacturing an electric water pump according to the present disclosure may include a previous manufacturing step, an assembling step, a control substrate installing step, and a cover installing step.
In the previous manufacturing step, the pump housing 100 and the acceptor 200 are manufactured. The acceptor 200 is manufactured in the previous manufacturing step so that the external terminal and the internal terminal penetrate through the acceptor and one ends of the external terminal and the internal terminal are positioned at the outer portion of the acceptor and the other ends thereof are positioned at the inner portion of the acceptor.
The pump housing may be formed of a metal such as aluminum having the high thermal conductivity as described above to serve as the heat sink of the control substrate.
As illustrated in
In the previous manufacturing step, the acceptor 200 may be insert-injection-molded in a state in which the external terminal 400 and the internal terminal 500 are fixed in the mold when the acceptor 200 is injection-molded, in order for the external terminal 400 and the internal terminal 500 to penetrate through the acceptor 200.
As illustrated in
The pump housing 100 and the acceptor 200 may be in contact with each other and be then screwed to each other, and positions at which the pump housing 100 and the acceptor 200 are screwed to each other may be outer surfaces of the pump housing 100 and the acceptor 200 in contact with each other.
As illustrated in
In the control substrate installing step, the control substrate 300 may be installed and be electrically connected to the external terminal 400 and the internal terminal 500.
As illustrated in
Only a single bolt B is illustrated in
In the cover installing step, a cover 210 is installed to cover the control substrate 300. The cover 210 may be coupled to the acceptor 200 in a laser welding manner or a heat corking manner, but the present disclosure is not limited thereto. The cover 210 may be formed in a prefabricated manner using a coupling structure such as a separate fitting structure between the acceptor 200 and the cover 210.
The electric water pump of which manufacture is completed by performing the cover installing step is illustrated in
According to the electric water pump and the method of manufacturing the same according to the present disclosure as described above, the external terminal electrically connecting the external power supply and the control substrate to each other and the internal terminal electrically connecting the control substrate and the motor to each other are integrated with the acceptor through the insert-injection-molding, such that the acceptor may be produced by a single production process and economical efficiency is thus improved.
In addition, according to the present disclosure, a separate electrical conductor such as a terminal is not installed in the cover formed to cover the control substrate. Therefore, when the cover is removed in order to perform the debugging or the maintenance on the control substrate, an additional work is not required, such that when the user uses the electric water pump, convenience is improved.
The present disclosure is not limited to the abovementioned exemplary embodiments, but may be variously applied, and may be variously modified without departing from the gist of the present disclosure claimed in the claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10-2017-0088390 | Jul 2017 | KR | national |
| Number | Date | Country |
|---|---|---|
| 2006257912 | Sep 2006 | JP |
| 2012092742 | May 2012 | JP |
| 2012092742 | May 2012 | JP |
| 101332853 | Nov 2013 | KR |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20190017510 A1 | Jan 2019 | US |
