Camshaft for Reciprocable Piston Engines

The present invention relates to a camshaft for reciprocable piston engines, in which bearings, cams, gears and the like are produced as individual parts and are fastened to the shaft. With such a camshaft disclosed for instance in German Offenlegungsschrift No. 336241, the cams and bearings are produced from solid material and are fastened to the shaft. To this end, the shaft, and correspondingly also the cams and bearings have a hexagonal profile which absorbs the forces. With this camshaft it has been found disadvantageous that the same amount of material is necessary as with a cast or forged camshaft because the shaft as well as the cams are produced from solid material. The camshaft is therefore as heavy, and in addition, even more expensive than the customary cast or forged camshaft.

It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a camshaft which will be lighter in weight and considerably cheaper to manufacture, and will have the necessary strength.

These and other objects and advantages of the invention will appear more clearly from the following specification in connection with the accompanying drawing, in which:

FIG. 1 is a longitudinal section through a camshaft according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 represents a cross section through the cam ring and hollow shaft of a camshaft according to the invention, said section being taken along the line II--II of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 represents a cross section through the bearing ring and the hollow shaft according to the section line III--III of FIG. 1.

The camshaft according to the present invention is characterized primarily in that the shaft is designed as a hollow shaft and that the cams and bearings are designed as cam rings and bearing rings and are fastened to said hollow shaft.

In this way, it will be possible for the cams and the bearing rings as well as for the shaft to select the required material in order to assure good strength and high hardness and wear resistance. In view of the design of the cams and bearings as cam rings and bearings rings, they are not produced from solid material but are annular and relatively thin walled which results in a considerable saving in weight.

According to a further development of the invention, it is suggested that the cam rings and bearings rings are made of correspondingly shaped tubular sections with substantially the same wall thickness over their entire circumference, preferably of drawn profile pipes. Such profile pipes may be purchased at any desired wall thickness and of any desired shape and furthermore of various qualities. Therefore, it is merely necessary to connect these rings to the hollow shaft. The tip and a considerable portion of the flanks of the cam rings are designed in a self-supporting manner and are not supported by the shaft. This is sufficient for their strength and brings about the great advantage of saving weight. This is of particular importance with a camshaft inasmuch as the said weight accumulations are arranged eccentrically with regard to the central axis of the cam shaft and therefore cause unbalances. The bearings rings and/or other parts such as gears arranged on the shaft for instance, have their inner wall provided with axially extending grooves or the like by means of which these parts can be fastened to the shaft. Such fastening for the cams as well as for the bearing rings advantageously may be effected by widening the hollow shaft while the hollow shaft is deformed to such an extent that outer wall configuration thereof extends into the grooves of the bearing rings and gears and into the inner shape of the cam rings which corresponds to the cams. As a result thereof, it will be possible in a simple manner to support and fasten the cam rings and bearing rings on the shaft. To this end, the cam rings and bearing rings are inserted into a die which corresponds to their outer shape in order to be sure that the widening of the hollow shaft will not cause any deformation thereof. The widening of the hollow shaft is effected advantageously by means of a rubber rod which substantially corresponds to the inner diameter of said hollow shaft or tubular member and which is compressed from the oppositely located end faces. Also other desired methods, for instance hydraulic or electro-hydraulic widening may be practiced. The tubular member 1 has round portions 1a and 1b concentric with a longitudinal axis A around which the tubular member rotates.

Referring now to the drawing in detail, as will be seen, the hollow shaft 1 has connected thereto cam rings 2 and bearing rings 3 (one only being shown). The cam rings 2 and bearing rings 3 are made of correspondingly shaped pipe sections with substantially equal wall thickness. This is done in a particularly favorable manner by preparing pipe sections of the required strength from drawn profile pipes. These pipe sections can be utilized without further machining the same, for producing the camshaft. The bearing rings, in addition to the cam rings 2 have their inner wall provided with axially extending grooves or undulations 4.

The manufacture of the tubular cam shaft is effected by slipping cam rings 2 and bearing rings 3 at the desired areas onto the hollow shaft and clamping said rings in their respective position in a corresponding die. Thereupon, a rubber rod corresponding to about the inner diameter of the hollow shaft is inserted at the predetermined spot into the hollow shaft, said rubber rod being compressed from oppositely located end faces. As a result thereof, the pipe section widens while the deformation of the hollow shaft is to be effected to such an extent that the outside wall of said hollow shaft reaches into the grooves or undulations of the bearing rings and into the inner form of the cam rings (FIG. 2); the inner form corresponds to the cam. In this way, a good support of the cam rings and bearings rings on the hollow shaft will be assured. In a manner similar to the bearing rings, also the gears can be connected to the hollow shaft while with these gears it may possibly be advantageous to provide one or more transverse grooves on the inner wall so that an axial securing of the gears on the hollow shaft will be assured.

As is seen in FIG. 1, the cams 2 are mounted on the tubular shaft 1 along longitudinally spaced cam positions designated generally by the numeral 7--7. The cam positions 7--7 each have one arcuate portion 8 displaced toward the axis A and one arcuate portion 9 displaced away from the axis A which arcuate portion form first and second arcuate outer surfaces. The arcuate portions 9 form a convex bulge which is curved in three dimensions rendering the configuration of the cam positions out-of-round.

The cams 2 are frictionally secured to the tubular member 1 by virtue of the tubular member being expanded thereagainst. As is seen in FIG. 2, the lobe portion 10 of the cam extends in the same direction as the bulge 9 and a space 11 is defined therebetween.

The widening of the hollow shaft by means of a rubber rod has the advantage that no special sealing of the pressing medium is required because the rubber rod has a compact mass. It may also be mentioned that a widening by hydraulic or electro-hydraulic means or other means is, of course, possible.

It is merely important that the widening is so effected that the cam rings and bearing rings will be well connected to the hollow shaft. Subsequently, the camshaft is ground or honed in a customary manner.

It is, of course, to be understood that the present invention is, by no means, limited to the specific showing in the drawing, but also comprises any modifications within the scope of the appended claims.