Piston constructions for opposed-piston engines

摘要

A piston construction for an opposed-piston engine accommodates contoured end surfaces of the piston crowns and articulation of the pistons with piston rods. The shape of each piston crown includes a bowl with an adjoining ridge that protrudes axially of the piston. A cooling construction for the piston includes an outer gallery running around the inner surface of the piston sidewall in the vicinity of the crown. The outer gallery girds and is in fluid communication with a central gallery that abuts the deepest part of the bowl. The outer gallery has an asymmetric profile that rises under the ridge and that slants upwardly under a peripheral portion of the bowl. A mechanism for coupling the piston to a piston rod includes a biaxial slipper bearing.

主权项

1. An internal combustion engine including at least one cylinder with longitudinally-separated exhaust and intake ports and a pair of pistons disposed in opposition to one another in a bore of the cylinder, each piston including a cooling gallery and a crown with an end surface identical to the end surface of the opposing piston, in which the end surface of each piston has a periphery, an elongated bowl adjoined by a curved ridge, and two aligned notches that extend through the periphery into the bowl, wherein the end surface cooperates with the end surface of the opposing piston to define a combustion chamber with a generally ellipsoidal shape, and each cooling gallery has an asymmetric profile that rises under the ridge and that slants upwardly under a concave portion of the bowl, and a port is positioned in each cooling gallery to receive a jet of liquid coolant.