The 11th International Fluid Power Conference, 11.

IFK, March 19-21, 2018, Aachen, Germany The 11th International Fluid Power Conference, 11. IFK, March 19-21, 2018, Aachen, Germany

Proportional Leak-Free Pressure Control Valve construction type of the valve. Obviously, there is a great variety in the requirements for pressure control valves
as there are plenty of different applications for such valves.

Christian Stauch, Frank Schulz, and Dr.-Ing. Michael Reik

1.2 Types of pressure control valves

HYDAC Fluidtechnik GmbH, Justus-von-Liebig-Straße, D-66280 Sulzbach/Saar, Germany
E-Mail: [Link]@[Link] A common way to classify pressure control valves is to differentiate by looking not at the control properties but
at the underlying construction principles of the valve. Some relevant distinguishing properties are listed and
discussed in the following:
Pressure control valves combine both a reducing and a relieving function. Such valves typically are spool type
valves which principally suffer from leakage flow. Additionally, in case of an electrical failure, usual • Set point adjustment
proportional pressure reducing and relieving valves fully open either the supply port connection or the tank port The set pressure of a control valve can be adjusted either manually (e.g. by manipulating the preload
connection. In some applications like clamping functions in machine tools, this is a clear disadvantage. For fail force of a spring) or electro-proportionally (e.g. by using electromagnetic actuation). Whereas the
safe operation in machine tools, it is desired to hold the set pressure in case of failure. The article introduces a electro-proportional set point adjustment offers clear advantages in terms of flexibility and adaptability,
new kind of proportional pressure reducing and relieving valve, which is leak-free due to seat valve technology. the classical manual adjustment still has its raison d’être in applications that are either very cost-
Furthermore, the valve is able to keep the set pressure in case of power-off and is therefore well-qualified for sensitive or have special safety requirements.
clamping applications.
• Pressure feedback
Keywords: control valve, independent metering, leak-free pressure control
In valves with direct feedback, the control pressure at the working port A causes a feedback force
Target audience: machine tool, industry hydraulics, test stand
acting on the control element, typically being a spool. By contrast, some types of valves rely on an
indirect or electronic feedback using a pressure signal from a sensor in order to control the spool.
Typically, a direct hydraulic-mechanical feedback is much more dynamic than an electronical feedback
1 Introduction which also depends on the dynamics of both the sensor and the actuator. However, an exception to this
Pressure control valves, also referred to as pressure reducing/relieving valves, are commonly used in fluid power is given by high-response and servo valves that also can be used for pressure control with an underlying
systems in order to regulate a pressure at a certain point in the system(e.g. such as an actuator). Such valves exist highly dynamical position control for the main spool. An intermediate type of feedback is the
in wide range of varieties. In order to illustrate the generic function of a pressure control valve, the simplest type combination of a direct force feedback for high dynamic control with an additional low-dynamic outer
is used in the following subsection (cf. Figure 1). electronic control loop for steady-state precision.

• Main control element

1.1 Function of a pressure control valve
Most pressure control valves are spool-type valves having a main spool whose position defines the flow
areas of the flow paths in the valve. However, there are a few poppet-type pressure control valves in
the market which have the advantage of leak-freeness in the closed position.

• Mounting type
As nearly all kinds of valves, pressure control valves exist both as cartridge (slip-in or screw-in) valves
and as flange- or plate mounted valves. Cartridge valves are used mainly, but not exclusively, in
mobile applications, e.g. for clutch controls whereas sub-plate mounted pressure control valves are to be
found in industrial applications almost exclusively.

(a) Functional symbol (b) Simplified symbol The resulting variety of valve types including some examples is illustrated in Figure 2. This classification is by
no means claimed to be complete or canonical in any sense. Further categories such as pilot operated/direct
Figure 1: Symbols for a pressure control with manually adjustable set pressure.
operated could be added easily.

Having a closer look to the proportional valve branch in Figure 2, a gap becomes obvious: so far, there is no
A pressure control valve, typically having 3 ports, combines both a pressure reducing function and a pressure proportional seat-type pressure control valve in the market, at least to the best of the authors’ knowledge. The
relieving function. When either increasing the load pressure or maintaining a constant set pressure with a flow focus of this article therefore is the presentation of a novel market-ready leak-free proportional pressure control
rate consumption at the working port A, then the valve is in reducing mode. In this case it causes a pressure drop valve.
from the supply port P to the working port A such that the pressure at the working port A reaches the desired
value. If the flow direction is reverse or the working port pressure is to be decreased, then the valve changes to

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pressure relieving mode. In this case, the flow path from the working port A to the relief port T is used. The
valve causes a pressure drop between these two ports such that again the desired pressure value in the working
port A is achieved. The quality of the regulation in terms of precision and dynamics heavily depends on the

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Figure 3: Pressure Control Valve P3R. Figure 4: Functional circuit symbol.

2.1 Functional principle

The valve involves a housing with a standard mounting interface, an integrated on-board digital electronics
(OBE) and two poppet valve elements which can be activated independently from each other. One valve element
connects the supply port P to the working port A, the other element connects the working Port A to the relief port
T. The use of seat-type valve technology avoids undesired leakage cross flow from both supply port P and
working port A to the tank port T. A pressure transducer detecting the working port pressure is integrated in the
valve housing. The pressure signal is fed to the digital OBE, where a pressure control algorithm determines the
opening of the poppet elements. The desired set pressure is also fed to the OBE via an analogue input signal.
Additionally, the OBE involves the underlying current control for the valve coils.

2.2 Features

Figure 2: Different types of pressure control valves. First of all, the availability of an integrated pressure transducer and an OBE allows for closed loop pressure
control which brings about several advantages: Most obviously, with closed loop control, the hysteresis can be
reduced to the limits given by the pressure transducer which is below 1% of the measurement scale. In Figure 5,
2 The leak-free proportional pressure control valve P3RSEE 6 the pressure-current-curve shows the quasi-static characteristic of the valve. Another benefit of closed loop
control is the linearity of this characteristic curve. The major advantage however is the flow compensation due to
The main motivation for designing the P3RSEE 6 was to close the gap shown in Figure 2, i.e. to have a poppet-
the closed loop control. Figure 6 shows the pressure-flow characteristic of the valve in relieving mode. The
type proportional pressure control valve. The origin of this principle lies in the research area of digital hydraulics
influence of the flow rate on the set pressure is reduced significantly as compared to open loop pressure control
/1/, where two 2/2 poppet-type on/off valves are used in combination with a pressure sensor and PWM valve
valves.
control in order to regulate the pressure between the two valves. However, the PWM principle requires very fast
switching valves which are not available at marketable costs. A principle using poppet valves similar to the The combination of poppet-type elements and independent metering principles allows realising zero overlap
pressure control valve presented here was successfully implemented by Plöckinger et al. for the position control control behaviour while at the same time having zero leakage in the “neutral position”. This brings about another
of a hydraulic membrane actuator /2/. advantageous load-holding feature of the valve: in case of an electrical failure, e.g. an undesired power-off or an
emergency stop, both flow paths from supply port P to working port A and from port A to the relief port T are
The novel pressure control valve P3RSEE6 (cf. Figure 1 Figure 4) combines the advantages of closed loop
closed by the poppet elements. Besides, in another case of known failure where the hydraulic power is lost (i.e.
pressure control, independent metering, and poppet-type valve elements in one highly integrated subplate-
mounted size 6 valve with on-board electronics (OBE). the supply pressure breaks down) the valve allows to relief the pressure from the working port A to T in a fully
controlled manner.

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2.3 Technical Specification

The pressure control valve P3RSEE 6 has a CETOP 03 standard interface in accordance to ISO4401. The
nominal flow is 25 l/min and the maximum pressure range is 350 bar. The dynamics of the valve depends on the
operating conditions, the load dynamics attached and the controller parameters. Typical step response times are
in the range of 50-300 ms. The pressure drop per metering edge is in the range of 5 bar at 8 l/min flow rate.

2.4 Case study

A technology demonstrator is used to illustrate the main features of the pressure control valve (cf. Figure 7). This
demonstrator includes an accumulator charging circuit with a compact power unit being connected to the supply
port P of the valve. The relief port is connected to the tank of the power unit. A pressure gauge and a pressure
transducer are mounted at the working port A with an overall trapped oil volume of 25 ml. The set pressure is
repeatedly ramped up and down between 0 and 100 bar using ramp times of 1 s and holding times of 1 s, i.e. the
overall cycle time is 4 s. The hysteresis set points of the charging logics are chosen such that the power unit
starts charging at a supply pressure of 101 bar and stops when the pressure has reached 115 bar. Within one
Figure 5: Pressure control characteristic.
accumulator charging cycle, the valve is able to perform 225 load pressure cycles. Taking into account the
accumulator dimensioning, the overall amount of oil consumed within these 225 cycles can be estimated to 50
ml. Approximately 80% of this amount are used for repeatedly compressing the trapped oil at the working port
A. This experiment emphasises the valve’s ability for pressure control at almost zero leakage level and load
holding at zero leakage.

Figure 6: Pressure-flow-characteristic.

The sales-ready version of the valve has an analogue monitoring output, where the actual pressure determined by
the pressure transducer can be forwarded to any higher level control system which allows for a more
sophisticated process control and monitoring; a fact from which predictive maintenance systems also might
Figure 7: Circuit sketch of the technology demonstrator.
benefit. Further development of the valve involves the complementation of digital communication interfaces (cf.
Section 4).

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The 11th International Fluid Power Conference, 11. IFK, March 19-21, 2018, Aachen, Germany

3 Application areas levels in the control hierarchy. These features may bring about significant advantages regarding energy
efficiency, cost and service life in applications like clamping hydraulics and similar areas. The valve as
The most obvious target application area is clamping in machine tools. Here, most of the features of the
presented is project ready. Further development efforts aim at including additional features like auto-tuning and
presented valve bring about added value for the application. The possibility to precisely control the clamping
increasing the valve dynamics.
force dependent on machining processes and workpieces becomes more important in machining of lightweight
workpieces and materials. The integrated pressure feedback enables a process monitoring and fine-tuning
without the need to install additional sensors. The integrated load holding feature allows for increased functional
safety. Modern clamping hydraulics often relies on accumulator charging circuits with variable speed drives. The
avoidance of leakage in the clamping not only yields a significant benefit regarding the energy efficiency of the
system but also reduces the fluid heating due to energy loss in the hydraulic system. This in turn might reduce
the necessary expenses for cooling in the hydraulic system. Additionally, the decrease in leakage losses in an
accumulator-based clamping hydraulics either allows for downsizing of the accumulator or the pump drive or
requires less recharging cycles. Summing up, the pressure control valve P3RSEE 6 enables a change in the
design of the clamping hydraulics that might bring significant benefits in efficiency, cost and service life.

Other target application areas can be found both inside and outside the field of machine tools. Presses with high
numbers of working cycles will benefit from the increased energy efficiency due to the reduced leakage and
leak-free load holding. The same holds true for variable counterbalancing functions in machine tools.
Requirements that are very similar to those of clamping circuits can also be found in the field of hydraulic
brakes.

In general, any pressure or force control application that is both sensitive to leakage or energy loss and requires
precise control with intermediate dynamics is a possible target area for the presented pressure control valve.
Other applications that might benefit are such where both proportional pressure control and leak-free load
holding in case of power-off is needed.

4 Outlook: Further development and additional features

The pressure control valve P3RSEE 6 as presented in the Sections 1-3 is available for sales. Nonetheless, the
valve is under constant development. The next development step will be the complementation of digital
communication facilities.

In addition to new state-of-the-art communication interfaces, the control software itself is subject to further
Figure 8: Relation between the identified parameter α and the load capacity 𝐶𝐶𝐿𝐿 .
development. The implementation of adaptive control algorithms and auto-tuning capabilities is the main focus
of current development in this area. Recent experiments have shown that the valve is qualified for online
identification of plant parameters. A recursive identification algorithm that is fed with test signals and
measurements that are available within the OBE yields a parameter α that gives a measure for the load capacity
References
attached to the working port A (cf. Figure 8). In most of the relevant applications, this load capacity determines
the plant dynamics. Therefore, future control algorithms can be tuned automatically in dependence of this /1/ Linjama, M. Digital fluid power: State of the art. In 12th Scandinavian International Conference on
parameter α which then will be identified on-line. Fluid Power, Tampere, Finland, May 2011.
Further activities in development aim at increasing the physical dynamics of the valve in order to be applicable /2/ Plöckinger A., Winkler B., Foschum P., Scheidl R.: Digital Hydraulics for an Industrial Micro-
to systems that have higher requirements regarding the closed-loop dynamics as those mentioned in section 3. Positioning System, in: Hubertus Murrenhoff (Eds.): Proceedings of the 9th International Fluid Power
Conference (9th IFK), 24th - 26th March 2014, Aachen, Germany, Volume 1, Page(s) 478-489, 2014
5 Summary /3/ HYDAC International GmbH, Compact Hydraulic. Product Catalogue,
The present article introduces a novel kind of proportional pressure control valve with on-board digital [Link] visited on
December 11, 2017.
electronics relying on independent metering principles and poppet-type valve elements. This allows pressure
control at very low leakages and low hysteresis as compared to conventional pressure control valves and load /4/ Moog Inc., Proportionalventile Baureihe D941,

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holding at zero leakage. The integrated pressure sensor may also be used for monitoring purposes at higher [Link] visited on December 11,
2017

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