A Study on a New Independent Metering Valve for Hydraulic Boom Excavator

Nowadays, hydraulic excavators are an indispensable part of the construction industry; however, conventional hydraulic excavators consume a great deal of fossil fuel and release a large amount of pollution emissions into the environment. This causes many unwanted costs, therefore, effective solutions are required to solve the above-mentioned problems. In this paper, a new independent metering system is proposed to improve energy-saving and reduce costs of a conventional system. In detail, a directional valve is used to control movement and three electro-hydraulic poppet valves are integrated to adjust the flow rate at the inlet and outlet ports of the boom cylinder. In addition, a control strategy based on the coordination between the speed of the pump and the opening area of the spool valve is designed to improve the performance of the system. Specifically, the valves are controlled based on the strategy that the meter-in valve is opened fully to reduce throttling losses and that the meter-out valve is controlled to reduce leakage. The speed of the pump is adjusted according to the feedback position signal. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the new configuration, a real test bench of the boom system was built under laboratory conditions. From the experimental results, the new independent metering valve system not only works with a high tracking precision, but it also reduces energy consumption. Compared with a conventional independent metering system, the fuel economy of the proposed structure can achieve a reduction of approximately 6.5%.

Digital Twin-Driven Mating Performance Analysis for Precision Spool Valve

The precision spool valve is the core component of the electro-hydraulic servo control system, and its performance has an important influence on the flight control of aviation and aerospace products. The non-uniform surface topography error causes a non-uniform mating gap field inside the spool valve, which causes oil leakage and leads to deterioration of the spool valve performance. However, the current oil leakage calculation method only considers the influence of size errors, which is not comprehensive. Thus, how to characterize the mating behavior of the spool valve and its effect on oil leakage with consideration of surface topography errors is the key to evaluating the performance of the spool valve. This paper proposes a new way of analyzing the mating performance of precision spool valves, which considers the surface topography errors based on digital twin technology. Firstly, a general framework for the analysis of mating performance of precision spool valve based on a digital twin is proposed. Then, key technologies of assembly interface geometry modeling, matching behavior modeling and performance analysis are studied. Finally, a quantitative correlation between the mating parameters and the oil leakage of the precision spool valve is revealed. The method is tested on a practical case. This proposed method can provide theoretical support for the accurate prediction and evaluation of the mating performance of the precision spool valve.

Robust μ-Controller for Hydraulic Spool Valve, Pilot Operated with Switching Micro Valves

Hydraulic spool valve, pilot operated with bi-state switching micro valves is a low-cost alternative to the conventional proportional and high-response valves. However, high-frequency switching causes variations in the control flow which limits achievable spool tracking error. This paper presents the design of a robust μ-controller for the spool position reference tracking synthesized with D-K iterative procedure. Furthermore, in order to reduce wind-up effects in the closed-loop, the μ-controller is decomposed to a canonical observer and state feedback components which allows explicit introduction of the saturated control signal in the controller equations. The uncertainty model required for the μ-synthesis is inferred from the nonlinear hydraulic model by identification of a Box–Jenkins model set characterized by its parameter covariance matrix. The regulator is implemented in a 32-bit programmable logic controller (PLC) and its performance is experimentally verified on a laboratory test bench of electro-hydraulic power steering system.

A Single Stage Spool Valve for the Pressure Compensator of a Variable Displacement Pump – Design, Dynamic Simulation and Comparative Study With A Real Pump

The study is focused on the design of a simplified spool valve to be incorporated in the pressure compensator of a variable displacement axial piston pump in order to perform a comparative study with a commercial pump having a two stage spool valve in its compensator. The design involves evaluation of the spool size and selection of spring from static equilibrium condition to satisfy cut-in and cut-off pressure. Following the development of dynamic model of the system, a design sensitivity analysis of the spool valve has been carried out through simulation to identify the critical sizes of the parameters, which affect the pump performance. By systematic design, it is possible to have a single stage spool valve controlled pressure compensator that can produce performance of the variable displacement axial piston pump at par with the similar commercially available pump.

Failure-based sealing reliability analysis considering dynamic interval and hybrid uncertainties

In the reliability analysis of a sealing structure, radial clearance of the contact surface is usually regarded as a failure criterion, and the sample size is usually quite small, which brings great challenges to uncertainty quantification. Therefore, this paper proposes a reliability analysis method based on the leakage mechanism of the sealing. With the application of dynamic interval, the proposed method can be used to deal with problem of degradation in small sample to evaluate reliability. Moreover, the dynamic reliability with the mixture of the probabilistic and non-probabilistic variables can be obtained using the proposed method. An illustrative numerical case study of a spool valve is conducted in order to validate the proposed method and the implemented reliability sensitivity analysis. The proposed method is of great help in evaluating and predicting reliability with small degradation sample and hybrid uncertainties.

Failure-based sealing reliability analysis considering dynamic interval and hybrid uncertainties

In the reliability analysis of a sealing structure, radial clearance of the contact surface is usually regarded as a failure criterion, and the sample size is usually quite small, which brings great challenges to uncertainty quantification. Therefore, this paper proposes a reliability analysis method based on the leakage mechanism of the sealing. With the application of dynamic interval, the proposed method can be used to deal with problem of degradation in small sample to evaluate reliability. Moreover, the dynamic reliability with the mixture of the probabilistic and non-probabilistic variables can be obtained using the proposed method. An illustrative numerical case study of a spool valve is conducted in order to validate the proposed method and the implemented reliability sensitivity analysis. The proposed method is of great help in evaluating and predicting reliability with small degradation sample and hybrid uncertainties.

Influence and Improvement of Hydraulic Power on Spool Valve Reversing

This paper analysed the effect of steady-state flow force and transient flow force to sliding direction valve, and two examples were given to illustrate adverse consequences caused by excessive fluid power, put forward the compensation measures. The effect of flow force should be considered when designing the hydraulic system in order to make the hydraulic system work more stable.

Development and Demonstration of an Orderly Recruitment Valve for Fluidic Artificial Muscles

Variable recruitment fluidic artificial muscle (FAM) bundles consist of multiple FAMs arranged in motor units that are sequentially activated as load demand increases. The conventional configuration of a variable recruitment FAM bundle requires a valve for each motor unit, which is referred to as a multi-valve system (MVS). As each motor unit within the bundle is selectively recruited, this configuration is highly adaptable and flexible in performance. However, as the number of motor units increases, the valve network can become complex and heavy in its design. To decrease complexity and weight, the concept of an orderly recruitment valve (ORV) has been proposed and analyzed. The ORV allows multiple motor units to be controlled using a single valve that recruits and pressurizes all motor units. The ORV concept consists of a spool valve with multiple outlet ports and a motor unit connected to each port. A linear actuator controls the position of the spool, allowing fluid flow into each port in succession. Naturally, de-recruitment happens in reverse order. The objective of the ORV is to strike a balance between performance and compactness of design. The purpose of this paper is to present analytical modeling that can be used to understand the behavior and performance of an ORV system and develop an experimental proof-of-concept that illustrates the ORV operation in hardware. A pneumatic ORV prototype was constructed and used to actuate two FAMs sequentially, each representing a motor unit. The results demonstrate the ORV as a compact system with which a variable recruitment bundle with multiple recruitment states can be controlled.