First Steps Towards Model-Based Valve Design: Measuring Pressure Drop and Flow Forces of Industrial 2/2 Directional Poppet Valves

Abstract

This paper introduces a method for the measurement of flow forces on industrial 2/2 directional poppet valves.The valves are both normally open (NO) and normally closed (NC), direct-acting oil hydraulic valves that allow fluid flow in both directions.Previous works have only examined abstracted and reduced geometries that were specially manufactured for measurement purposes.This work provides a detailed insight into the valve actuation and force measuring system for a wide range of geometries as well as elaborates on the conceived quasi-static measurement method with a moving poppet.A unit for the compensation of pressure forces during measurement was developed and both its advantages and disadvantages are discussed.The test bench setup and the assumptions for determining flow forces from two measurements with and without flow are explained.The results for the measurements of five NO valves and four NC valves are shown for one tank pressure and one pressure difference.The results indicate that for most NO valves, the flow direction alters the behavior of the flow forces, and in one valve, the flow force changed its effective direction.In contrast, the flow force behavior in NC valves was qualitatively the same in both flow directions across all four tested valves.These measurements provide a better understanding of the flow forces in industrial NO and NC valves and can be used to validate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations in the future.

Authors 2

1. Timo Rothhardt Aachen

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   RWTH Aachen University -Institute for Fluid Power Drives and Systems (ifas) , Campus-Boulevard 30 , 52074 Aachen , Germany

2. Katharina Schmitz Aachen

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   RWTH Aachen University -Institute for Fluid Power Drives and Systems (ifas) , Campus-Boulevard 30 , 52074 Aachen , Germany