A Miniature On/Off Valve Concept for High Performance Water Hydraulics

Digital hydraulic control valve technology has shown its strengths in providing reliable, leak-tight and high performance valve control regardless of the pressure medium used, oil or water. This is enabled by the intelligent use of robust on/off seat valves. However, the availability of these valves for water hydraulics is limited, especially that of compact valves, which are needed for digital valve systems. Thus, with the aim to create a compact digital water hydraulic valve system, this paper presents the development process of a water hydraulic miniature valve. The starting point for the development is a previously developed miniature valve for oil hydraulics. Experimental results with the new prototype show that good performance can be achieved for the miniature valve even with using stainless steel materials. This enables high-performance digital water hydraulic control.