Development and Laboratory Tests of a Cheap, Robust, and Fast Check Valve for Industrial Applications

Although there is a need for cheap and very fast check valves in industry such components are not available on the market. Fast check valves designed for aeronautical applications have a very high price. Such fast valves would be utmost valuable components in many hydraulic systems where fast switching processes are going on. Quite often, some of the switching valve functions much easier could be replaced by check valves which basically should be much cheaper than active switching valves and, furthermore, need no external control. One very prominent example which highlights the enormous impact of such fast check valves is hydraulic variable valve train technology for combustion engines. Some patents [1,2] for instance rely on very fast check valves and experts in this field lament the missing of such. Having such cheap valves at one’s disposal could turn systems with a considerable energy loss quite easily in one with lower energy consumption. Also shock absorbers at the stroke end of linear actuators performing very fast motion need fast check valves.