Development of a High Speed On/Off Valve

The direct interface of fluid power components to digital computers requires electrohydraulic devices which can be actuated by a digital signal. High speed solenoid valves are devices ideally suited for this kind of application due to their on/off characteristics. In the last two decades, considerable research has been focused on developing fast responding on/off valves and this research has achieved some success. The fastest responding valves that have been reported are usually single stage and can only handle low flow rates. Two stage valves which can accommodate high flow rates have been developed, but they are either slow in responding or complicated in construction.

In this paper, the feasibility of a rotary based, single stage, fast responding digital valve is considered. The feasibility study consisted of developing a nonlinear model of the valve from which transient and steady state responses were simulated. Based on these simulation studies, a prototype valve was designed and fabricated. The configuration of the valve is introduced in this paper. Some preliminary experimental results of the testing of this valve are presented.