Theoretical and experimental investigation on novel 2D maglev servo proportional valve

This paper presents a novel two-dimensional maglev servo proportional cartridge valve (2D maglev valve), where a contactless maglev coupling is introduced between electro-mechanical converter and valve body to realize functions of force transmission, spool position feedback and linear-rotary motion conversion. Such configuration can effectively reduce cost of both valve manufacturing and electro-mechanical converter, while still maintain features of 2D valve such as null pilot leakage, high power-to- weight ratio and excellent anti-pollution capacity. Firstly, the characteristic equation of the valve is derived using linear theory, and the stability criterion is established for parameter determination. The influences of crucial structural parameters such as initial height of overlapping area, width of high-pressure and low-pressure holes, acting radius of magnetic force, pitch angle of maglev coupling, length of sensitive chamber and system pressure on the dynamic response are investigated based on AMESim numerical simulation. The prototype valve is then designed and manufactured and a special test rig is built. The no-load flow characteristic, load flow characteristic, leakage characteristic, amplitude and phase frequency characteristics and step response under different system pressures are measured. The experimental results are in a good agreement with the simulated analysis. As an over-damped system, the prototype valve has excellent working stability, which can reach a no-load flow rate of 105.9 L/min with hysteresis of 3.51%, amplitude bandwidth of 28.7 Hz and phase bandwidth of 42.8 Hz under 21 MPa. The research indicates that the 2D maglev valve can be a potential solution of flow rate control valve for flight control surface system of civil aircraft with high pressure and large flow rate application.