Recent Developments in the Design of a Ceramic Automotive Oil Filter

This manuscript describes two different design configurations for a novel environmentally-friendly automotive oil filter. In both cases the filter seamlessly retrofits existing engine applications. The filter element is housed in an easy-to-dismantle casing. The filter element may be replaced at every oil change, but not the casing which may last the lifetime of the engine. The filter element is made of ceramic honeycomb material, which typically possesses high-filtration efficiency characteristics and large contaminant accumulation capacity. When a filter element is replaced with a new unit, the old unit is sent out for treatment so that it can be reused. These cartridges are practical, durable, cost effective, user-friendly and environment-friendly. In this paper, emphasis is given to the engineering design process that took place in the development of this product, i.e., formulation of design problem statements and specifications, comparison of the two alternative solutions, feasibility considerations and detailed system descriptions.