Patent ID: 7681391

Claim:
A hydrodynamic coupling, comprising: a pump wheel which is or can be brought into a driving connection with an engine; a turbine wheel which is or can be brought into a driving connection with a work machine; the pump wheel and the turbine wheel jointly forming a toroidal working chamber which is or can be filled with a working medium in order to transfer driving power from the pump wheel to the turbine wheel; the turbine wheel jointly forming a coupling housing with a coupling shell which is connected in a torsionally rigid manner to said turbine wheel, or is inserted in a torsionally rigid manner into a coupling housing, so that the pump wheel is enclosed substantially or completely by the coupling housing; a centrifugal valve with a valve body actuated by centrifugal force arranged in the coupling housing in the region of its outer circumference, said valve switched in such a way in an outlet for the working medium from the working chamber that the valve body substantially or completely seals the outlet in the closed state of the centrifugal valve and releases the same in the opened state so that working medium flows out; wherein the valve body of the centrifugal valve is pressurized with working medium only on its side which is radially on the inside, and is pressurized on its side which is radially on the outside only by at least one elastic mechanical pressure element which acts in the closing direction of the centrifugal valve.