The present application claims priority from Japanese Patent Application No. 2011-174936, filed Aug. 10, 2011, which is incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to a two-stroke internal combustion engine, and more specifically relates to a two-stroke internal combustion engine that is capable of reducing the blow-by of air-fuel mixture.
2. Description of Related Art
Two-stroke internal combustion engines, composed of only a small number of parts, are lightweight and compact. Therefore, they are conveniently used as power sources of chain saws and brush cutters. Two-stroke internal combustion engines, in general, have a structure in which a piston opens and closes exhaust ports of a cylinder in its up-and-down movements in the cylinder. Since such engines are configured to discharge exhaust gas from the combustion chamber while supplying air-fuel mixture into the combustion chamber, they involve the problem that the mixture charged into the combustion chamber and yet unburned is discharged outside. This is the problem so-called “blow-by”. The blow-by of air-fuel mixture not only deteriorates the fuel consumption but also invites an increase of unburned component (HC=hydrocarbon) in the exhaust gas.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. S59-170423 A (No. 170423 of the year 1984) has an object to diminish the “blow-by” of air-fuel mixture, and proposes to provide a plurality of scavenging ports opening into the combustion chamber, thereby introducing air-fuel mixture from some of the scavenging ports remoter from an exhaust port into the combustion chamber and introducing fresh air from the others of the scavenging ports nearer to the exhaust port. According to this proposal, since the fresh air is introduced into the combustion chamber in addition to air-fuel mixture, and works to scavenge the combustion chamber, the blow-by amount of air fuel mixture is reduced. This method of scavenging is called “stratified scavenging”.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. S59-170423 A (No. 170423 of the year 1984) proposes another method of stratified scavenging. The proposal of this publication is explained below in greater detail. An invention disclosed in this publication relies on the theory that, to reduce the blow-by phenomenon in a two-stroke internal combustion engine, new air (air-fuel mixture) introduced into the combustion chamber and the burnt gas remaining in the combustion chamber should preferably be prevented from merging. From this standpoint, this publication proposes the invention related to an engine in which scavenging ports are provided at positions symmetrical of an imaginary line connecting the center of the cylinder bore and the center of the exhaust port. At each side of the imaginary line, the scavenging port is composed of a pair of divisional scavenging ports separated by a partition wall, which regulates the directions of air-fuel mixture flowing out of the individual scavenging ports. The engine further has a cavity acting as a scavenging-airflow attenuator at a location opposite from the exhaust port about the center of the cylinder bore. A first one of each pair of divisional scavenging ports, located closer to the exhaust port is oriented away from the exhaust port, that it, upward. In contrast, a second one of each pair of divisional scavenging ports, located closer to the scavenging-airflow attenuating cavity, is oriented toward that cavity.
According to the invention of the publication No. S59-170423 A, scavenging airflows exit from the right and left second divisional scavenging ports in which the partition walls regulate the flow directions toward the scavenging-airflow attenuating cavity. These scavenging airflows hit each other in the scavenging-airflow attenuating cavity and hit the inner wall of the scavenging-airflow attenuating cavity. Thus, the scavenging airflows are attenuated in flow rate and hence prevented from diffusion toward the exhaust port by the scavenging-airflow attenuating cavity. On the other hand, the scavenging airflows exiting from the first divisional scavenging ports flow toward the top of the cylinder while striking one another and expelling the burnt gas into the exhaust port. In this manner, it is possible to make a layered distribution of gases for stratified scavenging, in which the scavenging gas, which is an air-fuel mixture introduced into the combustion chamber through the first and second divisional scavenging ports, distributes in a space in the cylinder apart from the exhaust port, which is a region in the combustion chamber apart from the exhaust port. On the other hand, the burnt gas distributes in a region next to the exhaust port.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. S60-156933 (No. 156933 of the year 1985) focuses attention to the role of the scavenging passage, which makes communication between the scavenging port opening to the combustion chamber and the crankcase, in a two-stroke internal combustion engine, and proposes an improvement to solve the blow-by problem mentioned above. More specifically, this publication proposes to provide main scavenging passages and sub scavenging passages separated from main scavenging passages by partition walls respectively. The main scavenging passages are continuous from first scavenging ports and the sub scavenging ports are continuous from second scavenging ports. Thus, this proposal uses second scavenging airflows of a higher velocity from the second scavenging ports to control first scavenging airflows from the first scavenging ports. In short, the publication No. S60-156933 proposes to control the flow directions of the first scavenging airflows by using the second scavenging airflows flowing from the second scavenging ports at a higher velocity. Thus, it discloses an embodiment, as a typical example, in which the second scavenging airflows prevent that the first scavenging airflows partly flow into the exhaust port by circulatory shunt.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,848,398 aims higher output power and lower emission, and proposes to regulate angles of sidewalls of a scavenging port approximately rectangular in cross section in a two-stroke internal combustion engine.
The Inventors made researches on the blow-by phenomenon relative to locations of scavenging ports opening to the combustion chamber.
In the layout of
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a two-stroke internal combustion engine capable of effectively preventing the blow-by phenomenon without the need for significant modifications in its typical structure.
According to the present invention, there is provided a two-stroke internal combustion engine configured to expel burnt gas externally of a combustion chamber through an exhaust port while introducing air-fuel mixture into the combustion chamber from a crankcase through scavenging passages, comprising:
first scavenging ports opening to said combustion chamber and oriented away from said exhaust port;
main scavenging passages making communication between each said first scavenging port and said crankcase;
second scavenging ports opening to said combustion chamber at positions remoter from said exhaust port than said first scavenging ports respectively, and oriented away from said exhaust port; and
branch scavenging passages branched from said main scavenging passages and extending aslant away from said exhaust port up to each said second scavenging port,
wherein said branch scavenging passages have a mean cross-sectional area smaller than a mean cross-sectional area of said main scavenging passages, and
With this structure of the invention, since the scavenging passages open at the ports to the combustion chamber with a wider area than that at the port to the crankcase, scavenging airflows entering into the combustion chamber from the scavenging ports have a lower flow velocity than in conventional engines. Additionally, since the branch scavenging passage is thinner than the main scavenging passage, velocity of a second scavenging airflow from the second scavenging port in communication with the branch scavenging passage is higher than the velocity of a first scavenging air flow from the second scavenging port. Furthermore, the branch scavenging passage extending aslant contributes to improving directivity of the second scavenging airflow from the second scavenging port.
Because of the above-mentioned mechanism, the first scavenging airflow from the first scavenging port closer to the exhaust port is drawn toward the second scavenging airflow from the second scavenging port remoter from the exhaust port. This contributes to reducing the short-cut phenomenon that part of the first scavenging airflow escapes from the exhaust port to the exterior in an initial stage of each exhaust stroke. Further, because the flow velocity of the first and second scavenging airflows ejected from the first and second scavenging ports is relatively slow, and because the first scavenging airflow ejected from the first scavenging port is drawn away from the exhaust port by the second scavenging airflow flowing relatively faster from the second scavenging port, the first scavenging airflow from the first scavenging port moves away from the exhaust port, next hits the inner wall of the cylinder bore, and thereby changes its flow direction toward the exhaust port. Therefore, the traveling distance of the first scavenging airflow from the first scavenging port up to the exhaust port is elongated. This contributes to preventing the blow-by, which will otherwise occur in a later half of each exhaust stroke (see
Intended effect of preventing the blow-by by the present invention in first and second halves of each exhaust stroke can be attained by simply modifying a conventional engine typically of a four-flow scavenging type. Of course, the second scavenging airflow to be supplied from the second scavenging port may be either air-fuel mixture from the crankcase or fresh air, which may be supplied through the branch scavenging passage.
Other objects and features of this invention will become apparent from detailed explanation of preferred embodiments, which follow.
Some embodiments of the invention is explained below with reference to the drawings.
With reference to
With reference to
Still referring to
Let each main scavenging passage 24 have a mean cross-sectional area S1 (
In the engine 10 having the above-explained structural features of the scavenging passages, like in conventional engines, the piston (not shown), in its strokes, opens and closes the exhaust port 16, first and second scavenging ports 20, 22, thereby charging air-fuel mixture into the combustion chamber from the crankcase and scavenging the combustion chamber with the air-fuel mixture introduced therein. In the engine 10 according to the embodiment, however, the inlet 24a (
Therefore, in the scavenging system according to the embodiment, the total opening area (S4+S5 in
In addition, the branch scavenging passage 26 continuous to the second scavenging port 22 closer to the intake port 14 extends upward aslant from the main scavenging passage 24 closer to the exhaust port 16 toward the intake port 14 as already explained. Since this extending direction of the branch scavenging passage 26 is common to the orientation of the second scavenging port 22, the branch scavenging passage 26 enhances directional control of the second scavenging airflow 30 from each second scavenging port 22.
As a result of the enhanced directional control of the second scavenging airflows 30 from the second scavenging ports 22, the first scavenging airflows 28 from the first scavenging ports 20 nearer to the exhaust port 16 are drawn toward or into the second scavenging airflows 30. Because of these motions, it is possible to diminish the short-cut phenomenon that the first scavenging airflows 28 partly flow out to the exterior from the exhaust port in an initial stage of each exhaust stroke.
Further, the flow speed of the first and second scavenging airflows 28 and 30 supplied from the first and second scavenging ports 20 and 22 into the combustion chamber is relatively slow because their total opening area of the first and second scavenging ports 20 and 22 is larger than the cross-sectional area of the common passage portions 24a. Moreover, as the first scavenging airflows 28 from the first scavenging ports 20 nearer to the exhaust port 16 continuous to the main scavenging passage 24 are drawn toward the intake port 14 by the second scavenging airflows 30 from the second scavenging ports 22, the first scavenging airflows 28 flowing from the first scavenging ports 22 at a relatively slow speed shift toward the intake port 14 and next change their flow directions by bouncing at the inner wall of the cylinder bore 12. This results in substantially elongating the travel distances of the first scavenging airflows 28 up the exhaust port 16. The relatively low flow speed of the first and second scavenging airflows 28, 30 and the elongation of the traveling distances of the first scavenging airflows 28 contribute to prevention of the blow-by in the latter half of each exhaust stroke.
To evaluate the effect of the invention, the Inventors prepared a prototype engine and compared it with existing engines. The Inventors could confirm approximately 1.3% to 3.3% increase of the and approximately 30% reduction of HC by the present invention.
An engine taken as the embodiment has been explained heretofore. The engine, however, can be modified in various respects. For example, regarding the first and second scavenging ports 20, 22, So far explained has been the embodied example of the subject invention. As for the first and second scavenging ports 20 and 22, angles of the sidewalls 20a, 20b (
The explanation of the embodiment was made above by taking the example in which the main scavenging passages 24 and the branch scavenging passages 26 are integrally formed in the cylinder block. However, these passages 24 and/or 26 may be defined by using elements separate prepared from the cylinder block. For example, removable passage-forming member may be fixed to the cylinder block to define the main scavenging passages 24 and the branch scavenging passages 26. It is also possible to pipe members removably connected to the cylinder block to define the main scavenging passages 24 and the branch scavenging passages 26.
In the embodiment and modified examples explained above, it is effective to determine slanting angles (elevation angles) of the first scavenging ports 20 nearer to the exhaust port 16 and the second scavenging ports 22 nearer to intake port with respect to a horizontal plane of the cylinder bore such that the elevation angle of the second scavenging ports 22 are larger than the elevation angle of the first scavenging ports 20. This structure of the second scavenging ports 22 having a relatively large elevation angle contributes to three-dimensionally scavenging of burnt gas from the combustion chamber.
The present invention is suitable for use as a power source of portable work machine or compact work machine such as a chain saw, brush cutter, hedge trimmer or blower.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2011-174936 | Aug 2011 | JP | national |