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The concept of the extended version of the invention combines a system for regenerative braking with a system recovering the exhaust gases energy, and with any auxiliary hydraulic system of a vehicle into an integral system.
As it can be seen on the diagram at right side, the concept is realized by a system, which consists of any known auxiliary hydraulic system ( e.g. Material Handling Equipment Cranes, Load Handling Systems, Power Steering, etc.), the known engine computer management system and the following additional components: block of electric valves, and a hydraulic accumulator with a sensor, a gas turbine, reduction gear and second hydraulic pump, as shown on the diagram.
The system operates in the following way: when the the engine computer management system identifies a deceleration of the car, it closes the electric valves. Thus the pump of the power steering system starts to pump hydraulic liquid from the hydraulic tank through the non-return valves in the hydraulic accumulator and thus a part of kinetic energy of the car and/or engine is stored there.
As power is needed, the engine computer management system opens the electric valves, and thus let the pressured liquid from the hydraulic accumulator to drive the pump as a hydraulic motor which on its side supplies additional power to the power train of the car. In this way the stored kinetic energy of the car and/or the engine is used for useful work and thus the fuel consumption and the emissions of the car are reduced and the performance is improved. Simultaneously, the exhaust gases of the engine drive the gas turbine. It drives through the reduction gear the second pump, which on its side pumps a liquid in the hydraulic accumulator, and thus stores the energy of exhaust gases. Then as power is needed and there is enough liquid in the accumulator, the engine computer control system proceeds in the already explained way. Thus the corresponding part of the exhaust gases energy is exploited for additional power instead to be wasted into the atmosphere. The fuel consumption and emissions of the car are reduced additionally, and the performance is improved correspondingly. As the process goes “on line”, the hydraulic accumulator operates mainly as a damper between the gas turbine and the engine crankshaft. In this regime of operation, the storage function of the accumulator just temporary (while being filled or emptied) compensates the need of variable gear ratio between the gas turbine and the engine crankshaft.
The system continue to provide pressured hydraulic liquid (from the hydraulic accumulator) for the auxiliary hydraulic systems (e.g. to the power e.g. Material Handling Equipment Cranes, Load Handling Systems, Power Steering, etc.).
IMFS can operates also as a Heavy Duty Start-Stop system, and as a reserve starter of the IC engine (e.g. at very low temperatures).
If applied on Forklift trucks, Container handlers or Gantry cranes, the corresponding special version of IMFS provides for load handling and moving energy recovery, and thus achieves even larger amounts of fuel and emissions savings (see at computer simulation results )
Of course, above variant is the simplest one, which just illustrates the concepts. Actually there are more than 40 variants and versions of the system’s structures and embodiments. The patent claims covers all of them by a specially structured system of patent claims. E.g. any details regarding the in-lining of the hydraulic motor-pump and the details of the management of the system are irrelevant to the patent coverage.
The system can be realized also in a basic version (the diagram at right side). It has not a gas turbine as well the corresponding second hydraulic pump. Thus it do not performs exhaust energy recovery, just like the known hydraulic regenerative braking systems (e.g. HRB of BoschRexroth, HLA of Ford and Eaton, and RDS of Permo-drive as well). But it still integrates the regenerative braking with the hydraulic power supply, and is able to provide that being of simple version, and do not requiring any significant alteration of the vehicle.
The modern cars waste about 46 % to 50 % of its kinetic energy during the multiple braking and decelerations prescribed by the European urban driving test ECE 15 (according to 99/100 EEC), and in the American US FTP 75 urban test, the braking losses are about 41 % to 45 %.
So, there are enough options to provide an overall effective regenerative braking, by targeting the multiply of slight partial decelerations, but not the separate intensive ones.
Thanks to this, to the dramatically simpler design, and to the performing of more functions, the basic version of IMFS is more cost effective than the conventional hydraulic regenerative braking systems.