Test Rig for Experimental Investigations on Motion Control Valves

The paper addresses the analysis and design of a motion control valves test rig and reports its final layout. The equipment allows the investigation of steady state and transient performance of overcentre and counterbalance valves. Resistive, inertial and overrunning loads can be generated to reproduce typical conditions on winches, aerial platforms and earth moving machines. The interest in this experimental facility originates from the fact that an oscillatory behaviour is at times observed in systems embodying motion control valves. Beside system layout and applied loads the behaviour is also influenced by specific valves characteristics. It is therefore relevant to reproduce in a lab environment such critical and unwanted situations in order to deeply investigate causes and effects on system dynamics. The rig is complemented by an automatic data acquisition system developed in Lab VIEW, which is also briefly described. Experimental tests and results are finally presented and critically analysed.