1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a fuel supply system for an internal combustion engine, and more specifically to an electromagnetic valve structure suitable for stable closing operation of an electromagnetic valve in a plunger type high-pressure fuel pump.
2. Description of the Related Art
Direct injection engines (in-cylinder injection internal combustion engines) for today's automobiles are developed in order to make emissions cleaner and improve fuel consumption in view of environmental protection. The direct injection engines are such that fuel is directly injected by a fuel injection valve into the combustion chamber of a cylinder. In addition, the particle diameter of fuel injected from the fuel injection valve is reduced to promote combustion of the injected fuel, thereby reducing the specific substance in the exhaust gas and improving fuel consumption.
Reducing the particle diameter of fuel injected from the fuel injection valve requires means for high pressurizing fuel. To meet the requirement, various proposals are made of the technology of a high-pressure fuel pump which supplies high-pressure fuel under pressure to the fuel injection valve (see e.g. JP-A-2006-256086). The technology described in JP-A-2006-256086 relates to a high-pressure fuel pump provided with a normally-closed electromagnetic valve as a suction valve. During a suction stroke, fluidic force is used to naturally open the suction valve, thereby achieving reduction of hitting sound of the valve body which may be caused at the time of valve-opening operation.
An air gap between the attractive member and movable member of an electromagnetic drive section in a hydraulic control valve is minimized by electromagnetic force resulting from energization. This makes it easy to cause negative pressure, which disadvantageously leads to the occurrence of a cavity. To prevent this, reform measures are disclosed in which the attractive member or movable member is provided, in an end face, with an opening portion formed as a fuel groove (see e.g. JP-A-2004-137996).
For example, JP-A-2005-511952 discloses a flow rate control device that controls a flow rate of liquid flowing through a valve operatively opened and closed by electromagnetic force. This device is configured such that a movable element moved by the electromagnetic force is provided with a swirling flow path to thereby prevent uneven wear of a sliding portion and to speed up valve opening and closing operation.
The high-pressure fuel pump described in JP-A-2006-250086 repeats the intermittent suction and discharge of fuel; therefore, pressure pulsation is generated in piping upstream of and downstream of the fuel pump. For example, pressure on the low pressure piping side lowers when fuel is sucked by the high pressure fuel pump and rises when discharged. If such pressure variations occur, the opening and closing timing of the electromagnetic valve becomes unstable. Thus, fuel to be discharged cannot accurately be controlled.
JP-A-2004-137996 and 2005-511952 disclose the provision of the fuel passage in the movable member or attractive member of the electromagnetic valve. However, this structure is devised to prevent the occurrence of the cavity resulting from the negative pressure caused in the air gap portion. In addition, the structure is devised to speed up the operation of the movable element in the electromagnetic valve. In other words, consideration is not made in view of stabilizing the closing timing of the electromagnetic valve irrespective of the internal and external pressure variations of the electromagnetic valve.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a plunger type high-pressure fuel pump that can stabilize the closing timing of an electromagnetic valve so as to discharge fuel at a stable flow rate for each cycle while valve-closing operation is not varied under a pressure difference between a hermetically closed space in the electromagnetic valve of the plunger type high-pressure fuel pump and an external space formed outside of the hermetically closed space.
In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, a plunger type high-pressure fuel pump includes: a cylinder provided in the pump; a plunger provided slidably in the cylinder and reciprocated according to rotation of a cam; a fluid pressurizing chamber defined between the plunger and the cylinder; an electromagnetic valve provided in a space defined between the pressurizing chamber and a fluid suction passage; and a discharge valve provided in a space defined between the pressurizing chamber and a fluid discharge passage. The electromagnetic valve includes: a valve body including a suction valve opening and closing an inlet side of the pressurizing chamber; an elastic body for biasing the valve body in a valve-opening direction; a solenoid coil adapted to displace the valve body in an opening direction; an anchor made of a magnetic material operated by electromagnetic force of the solenoid coil and provided integrally with the valve body; and a core forming a magnetic circuit to attract the anchor in an opening direction by the electromagnetic force and dividing the inside of the electromagnetic valve into a hermetically closed space and an external space communicating with the fluid suction passage. The anchor or the core is provided with a fluid passage through which fluid can flow between the hermetically closed space and the external space formed by the anchor and the core, respectively when the suction valve is in an opened state.
According to the aspect of the present invention, the anchor or the core is provided with the fluid passage through which fluid can flow between the hermetically closed space of the electromagnetic valve and the external space at the time of opening the valve. This can stabilize the closing timing of the electromagnetic valve. Thus, the plunger type high-pressure fuel pump can discharge fuel at a stable flow rate for each cycle.
A plunger type high-pressure fuel pump according to embodiments of the present invention will hereinafter be described in detail with reference to
With reference to
An end portion of the plunger 2 forms part of the pressurizing chamber 12. The plunger 2 is reciprocated by the rotation of a cam 100 to vary the volume of the pressurizing chamber 12. A suction valve 5 and a discharge valve 6 are installed in the fuel suction passage 10 and the fuel discharge passage 11, respectively. The suction valve 5 and the discharge valve 6 are held in one direction by springs 92 and 93, respectively, and each serve as a check valve for limiting the flow direction of fuel.
An electromagnetic actuator 8 is held in the high-pressure fuel pump 1 and includes a solenoid coil 90, a rod (a valve body) 91, and the spring 92. The rod 91 receives a biasing force applied thereto by the spring 92 in the closing direction of the suction valve 5 with a drive signal not given to the electromagnetic actuator 8. Thus, the suction valve 5 is brought into a closed state as shown in
Fuel is led by a low-pressure pump 51 from a tank 50 to a fuel introduction port 13 (see
When the fuel pressure in the common rail 53 exceeds a predetermined value, the safety valve 58 opens to prevent damage to a high-pressure piping system. The injectors 54 attached have the number made equal to that of cylinders of an engine and inject fuel in response to signals of a controller 57. The controller 57 includes an upper controller 63, a pump controller 59, and an injector controller 65.
The pressure sensor 56 sends pressure data obtained to the upper controller 63. The upper controller 63 calculates an appropriate amount of injection fuel and fuel pressure, etc. on the basis of engine state amounts (a crank rotational angle, a throttle opening angle, engine speed, fuel pressure, etc.) obtained from various types of sensors. In addition, the upper controller 63 calculates timing to drive the high-pressure fuel pump 1 and the injectors 54 and a flow rate and sends drive signals thereto. In the figure, the controller 57 is separately configured to include the upper controller 63 for calculating a command value; the pump controller 59 for directly sending a drive signal to the high-pressure fuel pump 1; and the injector controller 65 for sending drive signals to the injectors 54. However, the controller 57 may be configured to bring them into one unit.
The plunger 2 is reciprocated by the cam 100 rotated by the engine camshaft or the like to increase and reduce the volume of the pressurizing chamber 12. If the plunger 2 is moved upward in
During the discharge stroke of the plunger 2, if the electromagnetic actuator 8 is operated (by de-energizing the solenoid coil 90) to close the suction valve 5, the pressure in the pressurizing chamber 12 is increased to automatically open the discharge valve 6. Thus, fuel is supplied under pressure to the common rail 53. The suction valve 5 is automatically closed by the spring 92 even if the pressure of the pressurizing chamber 12 is lower than that of the fuel suction passage 10. However, the opening of the suction valve 5 is determined by the on-operation of the electromagnetic actuator 8.
The plunger type high-pressure fuel pump according to the present embodiment is such that the closing timing of the electromagnetic valve thereof is controlled by the pump controller 59 to thereby control the volume of fuel discharged through the discharge valve. If the electromagnetic actuator 8 is given a drive signal by the pump controller 59, the solenoid coil 90 is energized to generate an electromagnetic field to thereby move the rod 91 rightward, in the example of the figure, against the biasing force of the spring 92. Then, if the plunger 2 is moved downward during the intake stroke, fuel is sucked from the suction passage 10 into the pressurizing chamber 12. Next, if the plunger 2 is moved upward from the bottom dead center to open the suction valve 5, since the suction valve 5 is opened, the fuel in the pressurizing chamber 12 is returned to the suction passage 10 along with the upward movement of the plunger 2. In this case, the discharge valve 6 is set not to be opened by the pressure in the pressurizing chamber 12 (the so-called spill stroke is formed). In such a case, the discharge flow rate of the high-pressure fuel pump is zero.
Subsequently, in the middle of the upward movement of the plunger 2 (in the middle of the spill stroke), if the drive signal sent to the electromagnetic actuator 8 is interrupted (if a drive current is cut off), the rod 91 is shifted by the biasing force of the spring 92 to bring the suction valve 5 into a closed state. The further upward movement of the plunger 2 increases the pressure in the pressurizing chamber 12 to a level higher than a predetermined value to press and open the discharge valve 6. This brings the spill stroke in the discharge stroke, in which fuel is supplied under pressure to the common rail 53. In this way, timing to turn off the drive signal sent to the electromagnetic actuator 8 is adjusted to variably adjust the discharge flow rate in a range from zero to the maximum discharge rate. In addition, the upper controller 63 calculates appropriate discharge timing on the basis of a signal of the pressure sensor 56. The pump controller 59 turns on and off the drive signal sent to the electromagnetic actuator 8. Thus, the pressure of the common rail 53 can be maintained at a general steady value.
Consideration is now made to the pressure relationship between the hermetically closed space described above and an external space (in which the spring 92 of the electromagnetic valve 20, the periphery of the suction valve 5, the pressurizing chamber 12, the in-valve passage 15, and the suction passage 10 are present) adjacent to the hermetically closed space. The pressure in the hermetically closed space defined inside the electromagnetic valve encountered when the electromagnetic valve is opened is equal to in the external space encountered when the electromagnetic valve is just opened. However, the pressure in the external space is pulsated and momentarily varied due to the pressure variations of a fuel source and to the operation of the plunger. This causes a pressure difference between the internal space and the external space. This pressure difference causes variations in the closing operation of the electromagnetic valve even if timing to turn off the drive current supplied to the solenoid coil is the same. For example, if the inside pressure of the hermetically closed space is low and the outside pressure of the external space is high, then the valve-closing timing will be accelerated. Specifically, the occurrence of the variations between the inside pressure and the outside pressure varies the valve-closing operation (the valve body operation varies even if the command of the valve-closing timing is issued at the same time). Consequently, the variations of the valve-closing operation affect the accurate control of the discharge amount of fuel.
The object of the invention is to reduce the variations of the closing operation of the electromagnetic valve used in the plunger type high-pressure fuel pump. To that end, the major characteristic, i.e., the outline, of the present embodiment is that a fuel passage is provided to communicate between the hermetically closed space defined inside the electromagnetic valve and the external space formed outside of the hermetically closed space while the electromagnetic valve is opened, thereby preventing the occurrence of the internal-external pressure difference.
In
In
In this way, the fuel in the hermetically closed space 38 communicates with the fuel in the external space 39 via the clearance 37. The fuel passage in the configurational example of
In
With reference to
The passage-groove 43 shown in
FIG. 8(2) illustrates a passage-groove 47 provided at a portion of the magnetic attractive surface of the anchor 32 by way of example. The function and operation of this configurational example are the same as those of FIG. 8(3). FIG. 8(1) illustrates a configurational example in which the core 30 and the anchor 32 are provided with passage-grooves 48 and 47, respectively. This makes the magnetic attractive force equal to that of the case where the passage-grooves are individually provided and aims to facilitate the fuel communication between the hermetically closed space 38 and the external space 39. In other words, this can eliminate a disadvantage that if fuel is hard to flow between the hermetically closed space and the external space, the valve body operates slowly.
In the examples of
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2007-280553 | Oct 2007 | JP | national |
This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/259,999, filed Oct. 28, 2008, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, which, in turn, claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119 to Japanese Application No. 2007-280553, filed Oct. 29, 2007, the priority of which is also claimed here.