Numerical and experimental investigation of leakage behavior at null position of high-pressure electro-pneumatic servo valve

The high-pressure electro-pneumatic servo valve(HESV)is a core element of the high-pressure pneumatic servo system.The annular clearance and the rounded corner of the spool-sleeve can cause the leakage at null position,thereby affecting high-precision control and stability of the servo system.This paper investigates the effects of the clearance structure on leakage behavior at null position of the HESV.A numerical approach was employed to evaluate the effects,and then a mathematical model was established to obtain the variation law of leakage flow rate at null position.The results indicate that the leakage flow rate at null position varies linearly with supply pressure and rounded corner radius,and is nonlinear as a quadratic concave function with annular clearance.The leakage flow rate of the annular clearance and the rounded corner varies with the valve opening in an invariable−nonlinear−linear trend.A test rig system of leakage behavior at null position of the HESV was built to confirm the validity of the numerical model,which agrees well with the conducted experimental study.

Development of a Novel Parallel-spool Pilot Operated High-pressure Solenoid Valve with High Flow Rate and High Speed

High-pressure solenoid valve with high flow rate and high speed is a key component in an underwater driving system.However,traditional single spool pilot operated valve cannot meet the demands of both high flow rate and high speed simultaneously.A new structure for a high pressure solenoid valve is needed to meet the demand of the underwater driving system.A novel parallel-spool pilot operated high-pressure solenoid valve is proposed to overcome the drawback of the current single spool design.Mathematical models of the opening process and flow rate of the valve are established.Opening response time of the valve is subdivided into 4 parts to analyze the properties of the opening response.Corresponding formulas to solve 4 parts of the response time are derived.Key factors that influence the opening response time are analyzed.According to the mathematical model of the valve,a simulation of the opening process is carried out by MATLAB.Parameters are chosen based on theoretical analysis to design the test prototype of the new type of valve.Opening response time of the designed valve is tested by verifying response of the current in the coil and displacement of the main valve spool.The experimental results are in agreement with the simulated results,therefore the validity of the theoretical analysis is verified.Experimental opening response time of the valve is 48.3 ms at working pressure of 10 MPa.The flow capacity test shows that the largest effective area is 126 mm2 and the largest air flow rate is 2320 L/s.According to the result of the load driving test,the valve can meet the demands of the driving system.The proposed valve with parallel spools provides a new method for the design of a high-pressure valve with fast response and large flow rate.

Simulation research on dynamic performance of the new type high-pressure solenoid valve

To improve energy density,the transportation,storage,and operations of hydrogen,methane,and compressed air vehicles currently require high-pressure compression.High-pressure solenoid valve becomes the vital element to above system.In order to reduce leakage and aerodynamic force influence,a new type high-pressure solenoid valve was proposed.The simulation model which included electromagnetic model,aerodynamic force model was established by means of the nonlinear mathematic models.Using the software MATLAB/Simulink for simulation,the dynamic response characteristics of high-pressure pneumatic solenoid valve were obtained under different pulse width modulation(PWM)input control signals.Results show that,first of all,the new type of high-pressure solenoid valve can meet the switch requirement.Secondly,the opening movement and closing movement of the spool lags the PWM rising signal,and the coil current fluctuates significantly during the movement of the spool.Lastly,on/off status of high-pressure valve cannot be represented by the duty cycle.This research can be referred in the design of the high-pressure solenoid valve..

Application of High-speed Solenoid Valve to the Semi-active Control of Landing Gear

To select or develop an appropriate actuator is one of the key and difficult issues in the study of semi-active controlled landing gear. Performance of the actuator may directly affect the effectiveness of semi-active control. In this article, parallel high-speed solenoid valves are chosen to be the actuators for the semi-active controlled landing gear and being studied. A nonlinear high-speed solenoid valve model is developed with the consideration of magnetic saturation characteristics and verified by test. According to the design rule of keeping the peak load as small as possible while absorbing the specified shock energy, a fuzzy PD control rule is designed. By the rule controller parameters can be self-regulated. The simulation results indicate that the semi-active control based on high-speed solenoid valve can effectively improve the control performance and reduce impact load during landing.

RESEARCH ON THE PERFORMANCE OF NEW TYPE OF PROPORTIONAL PESSURE AND FLOW CONTROL VALVE

A new closed loop flow controlling principle through correcting the valve'sopening area while load pressure is changing is carried out. Further more a principle using only oneproportional valve to compound control pressure and flow is suggested. By using very simpleproportional throttle valve in structure, the functions that five kinds of proportional valves orany two of them combined possess can be complimented. After analyzing, comparing, and testing thedynamic and static characteristics of valve with different controlling principles and main valvestructure styles, the optimized structure styles and control methods are achieved.

TRANSIENT RESPONSE OF A VALVE CONTROL HYDRAULIC SYSTEM WITHLONG PIPES

The simulation model of a valve control hydraulic system with long pipe isestablished in Simulink4.0, and then the step responses of the systems with difference pipeparameters are investigated by simulation. Simulation results show that the long pipes will slowdown the step response of system and make it fluctuate periodically. The results of simulationconform to the results of experiment on the whole, which proves the mathematic model is correct.

Simple Push-Type Wave Generating Method Using Digital Rotary Valve Control

The important parameters to describe waves are their amplitude and length.In order to make it easier to improve wave amplitude and facilitate wave experiment,a simple push-type wave generating method using digital rotary valve control was proposed and different wave amplitudes were generated by the new method.After the mathematical model of the new method had been established,numerical analysis based on the linear wave theory was carried out by means of Matlab/Simulink software tools,and experiments were conducted on the push-type wave maker to ascertain the validity of the established model and the numerical simulation results.It shows that both experimental and theoretical results agree relatively well,and the plate motion frequency and amplitude of the push-type wave maker can be continuously adjusted and the various required regular waves can be obtained.Although the wave amplitude and length descends with the increasing of working frequency,the wave amplitude can be improved conveniently by setting the axial opening width of the valve and the oil supply pressure of system.The wave length remains unchanged with the axial opening width and the oil supply pressure change.The research indicates that different regular waves can be easily generated by the new method and the wave amplitude can be further improved in a certain plate motion frequency range.

Research and Development of Electro‑hydraulic Control Valves Oriented to Industry 4.0:A Review

Electro-hydraulic control valves are key hydraulic components for industrial applications and aerospace,which controls electro-hydraulic motion.With the development of automation,digital technology,and communication technology,electro-hydraulic control valves are becoming more digital,integrated,and intelligent in order to meet the requirements of Industry 4.0.This paper reviews the state of the art development for electro-hydraulic control valves and their related technologies.This review paper considers three aspects of state acquisition through sensors or indirect acquisition technologies,control strategies along with digital controllers and novel valves,and online maintenance through data interaction and fault diagnosis.The main features and development trends of electro-hydraulic control valves oriented to Industry 4.0 are discussed.

OPTIMAL CONTROL OF AN ACTIVE SUSPENSION SYSTEMEMPLOYING HIGH SPEED ON/OFF SOLENOID VALVE

Previous studies have confirmed that an active suspension system with high speed ON/OFF solenoid valves could provide the same vibration isolation efficiency as that of system with pressure proportional valve. In this study, by using Linear-quadratic optimization technique and Kalman filter method, an optimal regulator controller with a state observer was designed for the proposed system. Simulation and experimental research was conducted on a quarter car model. The simulation analysis of the system frequency characteristic suggested that the peak value of magnitude response curve in the case of system with an optimal controller would be lowered significantly, and the experiment results also showed that an improvement in the vibration isolation effect was obtained in using the designed optimal controller over the sky hook damper controller.

High Speed On/Off Valve Control Hydraulic Propeller

The work-class remotely-operated-underwater-vehicles（ROVs） are mainly driven by hydraulic propulsion system,and the effeciency of hydraulic propulsion system is an important performance index of ROVs.However,the efficiency of traditional hydraulic propulsion system controlled by throttle valves is too low.Therefore,in this paper,for small and medium ROVs,a novel propulsion system with higher efficiency based on high speed on/off valve control hydraulic propeller is proposed.To solve the conflict between large flow rate and high frequency response performance,a two-stage high speed on/off valve-motor unit with large flow rate and high response speed simultaneously is developed.Through theoretical analysis,an effective fluctuation control method and a novel pulse-width-pulse-frequency-modulation（PWPFM） are introduced to solve the conflict among inherently fluctuation,valve dynamic performance and system efficiency.A simulation model is established to evaluate the system performance.To prove the advantage of system in energy saving,and test the dynamic control performance of high speed on/off valve control propeller,a test setup is developed and a series of comparative experiments is completed.The smimulation and experiment results show that the two-stage high speed on/off valve has an excellent dynamic response performance,and can be used to realize high accuracy speed control.The experiment results prove that the new propulsion system has much more advantages than the traditional throttle speed regulation system in energy saving.The lowest efficiency is more than 40%.The application results on a ROV indicate that the high speed on/off valve control propeller system has good dynamic and steady-state control performances.Its transient time is only about 1 s-1.5 s,and steady-state error is less than 5%.Meanwhile,the speed fluctuation is small,and the smooth propeller speed control effect is obtained.On the premise of good propeller speed control performance,the proposed high speed on/off valve control propeller can improve the effeciency of ROV propulsion system significantly,and provides another attractive ROV propulsion system choice for engineers.

A comprehensive review of cavitation in valves:mechanical heart valves and control valves

Valves are widely used in various working conditions for their flow control functions,and the cavitation inside valves has been investigated owing to its harm to the valve itself and the connecting downstream parts.This paper presents a comprehensive review of the progress that has been achieved in the past years about cavitation in valves including both mechanical heart valves and control valves.The review is divided in the following parts,namely the location where there is a high possibility of the occurrence of cavitation,the parameters that affect cavitation intensity,and the methods to minimize cavitation intensity.It should be noticed that although simulation has been widely used,advanced experiments are still needed in order to obtain accurate analysis of cavitation in valves and the cavitation model still needs to be improved.

Parameters Sensitivity Characteristics of Highly Integrated Valve-Controlled Cylinder Force Control System

Nowadays, a highly integrated valve?controlled cylinder(HIVC) is applied to drive the joints of legged robots. Although the adoption of HIVC has resulted in high?performance robot control, the hydraulic force system still has problems, such as strong nonlinearity, and time?varying parameters. This makes HIVC force control very diffcult and complex. How to improve the control performance of the HIVC force control system and find the influence rule of the system parameters on the control performance is very significant. Firstly, the mathematical model of HIVC force control system is established. Then the mathematical expression for parameter sensitivity matrix is obtained by applying matrix sensitivity analysis(PSM). Then, aimed at the sinusoidal response under(three factors and three levels) working conditions, the simulation and the experiment are conducted. While the error between the simulation and experiment can’t be avoided. Therefore, combined with the range analysis, the error in the two performance indexes of sinusoidal response under the whole working condition is analyzed. Besides, the sensitivity variation pattern for each system parameter under the whole working condition is figured out. Then the two sensitivity indexes for the three system parameters, which are supply pressure, proportional gain and initial displacement of piston, are proved experimentally. The proposed method significantly reveals the sensitivity characteristics of HIVC force control system, which can make the contribution to improve the control performance.

Numerical study on cavitation in a globe control valve with different numbers of anti-cavitation trims

Cavitation is a destructive phenomenon in control valves.In order to delay cavitation,a multi-series of perforated cylindrical plates,called trims,are used.Previously,the effects of orifice diameter and different types of trims have been investigated.In this study,by numerical analysis,a globe control valve was investigated by employing four different cases(without trim,with one trim,with two and three trims)and the impact of the number of these trims on the intensity,formation region and the initiation point of cavitation was analyzed.It was found that the addition of one stage or two stages of trims reduces the intensity and delays the onset of cavitation,relative to the valve without trim.However,no significant differences in terms of intensity and initiation point of cavitation were observed in the cases where two or three trims were used.Therefore,due to the high cost of producing the trims,and the severe drop in flow coefficient,it is not economically and technically justified to increase the number of trims to more than three.

Investigation into the Independent Metering Control Performance of a Twin Spools Valve with Switching Technology-controlled Pilot Stage

In hydraulic area,independent metering control(IMC)technology is an effective approach to improve system efficiency and control flexibility.In addition,digital hydraulic technology(DHT)has been verified as a reasonable method to optimize system dynamic performance.Integrating these two technologies into one component can combine their advantages together.However,few works focused on it.In this paper,a twin spools valve with switching technologycontrolled pilot stage(TSVSP)is presented,which applied DHT into its pilot stage while appending IMC into its main stage.Based on this prototype valve,a series of numerical and experiment analysis of its IMC performance with both simulated load and excavator boom cylinder are carried out.Results showed fast and robust performance of pressure and flow compound control with acceptable fluctuation phenomenon caused by switching technology.Rising time of flow response in excavator cylinder can be controlled within 200 ms,meanwhile,the recovery time of rod chamber pressure under suddenly changed condition is optimized within 250 ms.IMC system based on TSVSP can improve both dynamic performance and robust characteristics of the target actuator so it is practical in valve-cylinder system and can be applied in mobile machineries.

Flow Control for a Two-Stage Proportional Valve with Hydraulic Position Feedback

The current research mainly focuses on the flow control for the two-stage proportional valve with hydraulic position feedback which is named as Valvistor valve.Essentially,the Valvistor valve is a proportional throttle valve and the flow fluctuates with the change of load pressure.The flow fluctuation severely restricts the application of the Valvistor valve.In this paper,a novel flow control method the Valvistor valve is provided to suppress the flow fluctuation and develop a high performance proportional flow valve.The mathematical model of this valve is established and linearized.Fuzzy proportional-integral-derivative(PID)controller is adopted in the closed-loop flow control system.The feedback is obtained by the flow inference with back-propagation neural network(BPNN)based on the spool displacement in the pilot stage and the pressure differential across the main orifice.The results show that inference with BPNN can obtain the flow data fast and accurately.With the flow control method,the flow can keep at the set point when the pressure differential across the main orifice changes.The flow control method is effective and the Valvistor valve changes from proportional throttle valve to proportional flow valve.For the developed proportional flow valve,the settling time of the flow is very short when the load pressure changes abruptly.The performances of hysteresis,linearity and bandwidth are in a high range.The linear mathematical model can be verified and the assumptions in the system modeling is reasonable.

Adaptive H-infinity control of synchronous generators with steam valve via Hamiltonian function method

Based on Hamiltonian formulation, this paper proposes a design approach to nonlinear feedback excitation control of synchronous generators with steam valve control, disturbances and unknown parameters. It is shown that the dynamics of the synchronous generators can be expressed as a dissipative Hamiltonian system, based on which an adaptive H-infinity controller is then designed for the systems by using the structure properties of dissipative Hamiltonian systems. Simulations show that the controller obtained in this paper is very effective.

A novel adaptive backstepping design of turbine main steam valve control

The problem of transient stability for a single machine infinite bus system with turbine main steam valve control is addressed by means of a novel adaptive backstepping method in this paper.The recursive design procedure of the proposed controller is much simpler than that of the existing controller based on conventional adaptive backstepping method.In the system,the damping coefficient is measured inaccurately,and the reactance of transmission line also contains a few uncertainties.A nonlinear robust controller and parameter updating laws are obtained simultaneously.The system does not need to be linearized,and the closed-loop error system is guaranteed to be asymptotically stable.The design procedure and simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design.

Optimal Control of Hydraulic Position System Employing High Speed On/Off Solenoid Valve

A hydraulic position system was designed employing two high speed On/Off solenoid valves with PWM(Pulse width modulation) technique and using LQ(Linear Quadratic) optimization principle. Based on the system, the parts of system can be formulated with equations. According to equations, the mathematical model of the system was established. By simulation, the corresponding LQ optimal controller was designed and the PWM signals were generated. The comparison of the simulation and experiment results show that LQ optimal control method with PWM technique employing high speed On/Off solenoid valve can provide better system performance and a high position precision is obtained.

Model-based trajectory tracking control for an electrohydraulic lifting system with valve compensation strategy

The natural frequency of the electrohydraulic system in mobile machinery is always very low,which brings difficulties to the controller design.To improve the tracking performance of the hydraulic system,mathematical modeling of the electrohydraulic lifting system and the rubber hose was accomplished according to an electrohydraulic lifting test rig built in the laboratory.Then,valve compensation strategy,including spool opening compensation (SOC) and dead zone compensation (DZC),was designed based on the flow-pressure characteristic of a closed-centered proportional valve.Comparative experiments on point-to-point trajectory tracking between a proportional controller with the proposed compensations and a traditional PI controller were conducted.Experiment results show that the maximal absolute values of the tracking error are reduced from 0.039 m to 0.019 m for the slow point-to-point motion trajectory and from 0.085 m to 0.054 m for the fast point-to-point motion trajectory with the proposed compensations.Moreover,tracking error of the proposed controller was analyzed and corresponding suggestions to reduce the tracking error were put forward.

A new adaptive backstepping method for nonlinear control of turbine main steam valve

A new approach for nonlinear adaptive control of turbine main steam valve is developed. In comparison with the existing controller based on ＂classical＂ adaptive backstepping, this method does not follow the classical certaintyequivalence principle in the design of adaptive control law. We introduce this approach, for the first time, to power systems and present a novel parameter estimator and dynamic feedback controller for a single machine infinite bus （SMIB） system with steam valve control. This system contains unknown parameters such as reactance of transmission lines. Besides preserving useful nonlinearities and the real-time estimation of uncertain parameters, the proposed approach possesses better performances with respect to the response of the system and the speed of adaptation. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed approach is better than the design based on ＂classical＂ adaptive backstepping in terms of properties of stability and parameter estimation, and recovers the performance of the ＂full-information＂ controller. Hence, the proposed method provides an alternative for engineers in applications.