Abstract
Recently, as the environmental regulation for earth moving equipment has been tightened, advanced systems using electronic control have been introduced for energy savings. An IMV(Independent Metering Valve), which consists of four 2-way valves, is one of the electro-hydraulic control systems that provides more flexible controllability and potential for energy savings in excavators, when compared to the conventional 4-way spool valve system. To fully realize an IMV, a two-stage bi-directional flow control valve which can regulate the large amount of flow in both directions, should be developed in advance. A simple design that allows proportional flow control to apply the pilot pressure from the current-controlled solenoid to the spring loaded flow control spool and thus valve displacement, is proportional to the solenoid current. However, this open-loop type valve is vulnerable to flow force which directly affects the valve displacement. Force feedback servo of which the position loop is closed by the feedback spring which interconnects the solenoid valve and flow control spool, could compensate for the flow force. In this study, linearity for the solenoid current input and robustness against load pressure disturbance is investigated by linear analysis of the static nonlinear equations for the IMV proportional flow control valve with feedback spring. Gains of the linear system confirm the performance improvement with the feedback spring design.