• Journal of Drive and Control
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.8-13
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• 2014

Hydraulic servo valves are widely used in various fluid power systems because of their fast response and precision control. In this paper, we studied the effect of metering notch shapes and amount of their openings on the flow characteristics within the spool valve using a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) code, FLUENT. To obtain the results for more realistic operating conditions, viscous heating due to the jet flow and viscosity variation of the hydraulic fluid with temperature were considered. For two types of notch shape, streamlines, oil temperature and viscosity distributions, and variations of flow and friction forces acting on spool were showed. The flow and friction forces affected by the metering notch shapes and their openings, and oil temperature rise near metering notch was significant enough to results in the jamming phenomenon. A thermohydrodynamic (THD) flow analysis adopted in this paper can be used in optimum design of hydraulic servo valves.

• Journal of Drive and Control
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.14-22
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• 2017

Flow force is the additional unbalanced force acting on the valve spool by fluid flow, excluding the static pressure force that is offset on the spool land wall at the same magnitude. When designing the valve spool, it is assumed that the same average value of static pressure is applied to the inlet and outlet spool land wall in one chamber. However, the high velocity of the fluid flow by the inlet or outlet metering orifice creates unbalanced pressure distribution and generates additional force in the opposite direction to that of the solenoid attraction force. This flow force has a negative effect on the control performance of the EPPR valve, which needs to develop uniform output pressure along the entire spool control range. In this study, we developed a 3D model of the EPPR valve and conducted flow force characteristic analysis using CFD S/W (ANSYS FLUENT). The alleviated flow force model was derived by adjusting the design parameters of the spool notch.

• Journal of Drive and Control
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.1-7
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• 2017

Energy consumption of conventional hydraulic excavators controlled by MCV is considerable when negative load is applied because the meter orifice and meter-out orifice are machined in one spool. Therefore, IMV is introduced to save energy use of hydraulic excavators, but existing hydraulic excavators have various advantages so it is difficult to make a clear comparison. In this study, we compare the use of an existing MCV excavator that has many advantages such as negative control, and IMV for boom up and down operation, and if IMV is used to save energy, we will examine the cause. If possible, for comparability under the same conditions, both systems use pressure balance valves to minimize power consumption when not using power in the actuator. The orifice area at each notch of each valve is calculated, and energy saving is verified by comparing the two systems through simulation.