A journey of a compact digital valve development; from scratch to series production

  • Thomas Zehetbauer
  • , Andreas Plöckinger
  • , Paul Foschum
  • , Marvin Schell
  • , Dieter Lohmiller

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference proceedingspeer-review

    Abstract

    Direct acting solenoid valves have its limits considering size and maximum dynamics. The company Lupold GmbH started a cooperation together with LCM to develop a digital hydraulic valve with integrated pressure relief function which is non-pressure equalised, direct actuated via solenoid and maximum nominal size within the limited constructional space. For a wide range of applications, the digital valve requires bidirectional operation and high dynamics along a certain pressure drop range up to 30 MPa. To find the perfect valve design a topology competition of the magnetic circuit including the demand on the valve geometry considering its dynamic behaviour was created. The geometries with lacks in required space, power losses and switching time were eliminated. Also, manually choices like feasibility in series production and manufacturing costs were considered during the evaluation process. The final valve geometry resulted in one of the world’s smallest direct acting and non-pressure equalised solenoid valves within a nominal flow rate of about 2.5 L/min @ 0.5 MPa pressure drop and maximum hydraulic switching times below 4 ms depending on pressure and flow direction.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationProceedings of the 11th Workshop on Digital Fluid Power, DFP22, September 19-20, 2022, Edinburgh, Scotland.
    Number of pages15
    Publication statusPublished - Sept 2022

    Fields of science

    • 203 Mechanical Engineering
    • 202009 Electrical drive engineering
    • 202027 Mechatronics
    • 202034 Control engineering
    • 203033 Hydraulic drive technology

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