Research Article

Advances in Mechanical Engineering

2017, Vol. 9(11) 1–11
Ó The Author(s) 2017
Performance analysis of a high-speed DOI: 10.1177/1687814017733247
journals.sagepub.com/home/ade
on/off valve based on an intelligent
pulse-width modulation control

Qi Zhong1, Bin Zhang1, Hua-Yong Yang1, Ji-En Ma1 and Rong-Fong Fung2

Abstract
Dynamic performance is an important index of high-speed on/off valve in the digital hydraulic field. Optimizing the con-
trol algorithm is an effective method to improve the dynamic performance of existing high-speed on/off valves. Usually, a
high-voltage excitation method is used to realize fast switching of the high-speed on/off valve, but this also leads to a high
temperature rise, large energy consumption, and long delay times when switching off. In this article, an intelligent pulse-
width modulation control algorithm is proposed to improve dynamic performance while minimizing temperature rise
and energy consumption of high-speed on/off valves. A high-frequency voltage source with full positive, low positive, full
negative, and zero duty ratios is applied to drive the high-speed on/off valve in opening, maintaining opened, closing and
maintaining closed states, respectively. The adaptive switching of these four duty ratios is realized by real-time current
feedback which can estimate the operational state of the high-speed on/off valve, so that the current in the loop is always
in the optimal state. A mathematical model of the high-speed on/off valve is built, and based on it, the theoretical formu-
las for the delay time, temperature rise, and energy consumption of the high-speed on/off valve are deduced. Simulation
results indicate that the intelligent pulse-width modulation control algorithm has a better performance in dynamic char-
acteristics than normal high-voltage excitation methods. Moreover, experimental results from a test system indicate that
the intelligent pulse-width modulation control has the potential to shorten the opening time by 23.6% and closing time
by 17.0%, which confirms the simulation results. Results also showed the ability to extend the controllable working duty
ratio by 83.3%, to reduce temperature rise by 69.9%, and reduce energy consumption by 88.8% when compared to the
matched controller of the tested high-speed on/off valve. This article presents an effective and practical method to
improve the performance of high-speed on/off valves.

Keywords
Current feedback, dynamic performance, high-speed on/off valve, intelligent pulse-width modulation control,
temperature rise, power consumption

Date received: 29 November 2016; accepted: 23 August 2017

Handling Editor: Rahmi Guclu

Introduction
The high-speed on/off valve (HSV) is a typical digital
component and is widely used in hydraulic and pneu-
matic systems because of its advantages, such as excel-
lent switching performance, compact structure, anti-
pollution abilities, and low cost. Operation frequency
and rated flow are two important indexes to evaluate
the performance of a HSV. Therefore, improving the
1
The State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems,
Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
2
Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, National
Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Corresponding author:
Bin Zhang, The State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power and Mechatronic
Systems, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
Email: zbzju@163.com

Creative Commons CC-BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
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further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/
open-access-at-sage).
2 Advances in Mechanical Engineering
dynamic performance of an HSV to extend its opera-
tion frequency is always a research hotspot. The meth-
ods to enhance the dynamic performance of HSVs
mainly include optimizing the control algorithm and
valve structure, and improving the performance of the
actuator. To improve the control algorithm, Florian
and Rudolf1 proposed a valve current boost method to
keep current at different levels, which was actually rea-
lized by voltage square waves with different duty ratios,
so as to shorten the switching time. In the study of
Lee,2 a fast HSV response was achieved using three
power sources driving circuit, but the excitation time of
each power source was preset, which needed accurate
calculations and tests to determine an optimal excita-
tion time of each power source. In valve structures,
Stockner et al.3 presented a hollow spool structure to
decrease the spool mass so as to improve dynamic per-
formance. Tu et al.4 designed a rotary on/off valve,
which spun its spool to switch the operational state,
and the prototype spool had reached selfspinning over
90 Hz. Ruan et al.5 designed a two-dimensional (2D)
valve whose spool has 2 degrees of rotary and sliding
freedom, which can realize a fast response. As to the
actuator of the HSV, a lot of work has been done. As
early as 1979 and 1981, some special solenoid structures
were proposed to accelerate the armature.6,7 In the lit-
eratures,8–10 the finite element method was used to opti-
mize the solenoid actuator to achieve faster responses.
Man et al.11 used a permanent magnet shield in the
electromagnetic actuator to improve dynamic perfor-
mance for high-pressure applications. In the study of
Takahiro12 and Goodfriend et al.,13 a giant magnetos-
trictive material was used to make the electromagnetic
actuator, which improves its maximum output force to
achieve a faster response.
However, with the increasing importance of energy
efficiency, the topics in reducing temperature rise and
energy consumption of HSVs have also gradually
become a research focus. In order to realize low energy
consumption, Pellikka et al.14 combined computation
of finite element methods with genetic optimization to
design a solenoid actuator, which has a better energy-
saving performance. Sheng-Nian et al.15 employed a
soft switch to constitute a driving control scheme for
HSVs and achieved a good energy characteristic. Ling
et al.16 discussed the parameters of pulse-width
modulation–holding solenoid drive mode, which
decreased the holding current. Goraj17 studied the
influence of the pulse-width modulation (PWM)
method on the temperature distribution in the arma-
ture of HSVs. Cheng et al.18,19 studied the effects of
four different driven strategies on the power losses of
high-speed solenoid injector. It was found that driven
circuit optimization was one of the most efficient meth-
ods to reduce the power loss. Zhao et al.20 investigated
the effects of different boost voltage on the dynamic
response and energy losses of HSVs and pointed out
that there was an optimal boost voltage to reach the
highest energy utilization efficiency of HSVs. In the
study of Giousouf and Kovacs21 and Hill et al.,22
dielectric elastomer (DE) membrane actuators which
have a low energy consumption were used to drive the
switching valves; compared with the solenoid valve, the
DE valve can effectively decrease the energy consump-
tion from 2.25 J to 5.7 mJ.
Improving the valve structure and actuator has to
be done in the design stage of the HSV and cannot
improve existing HSVs. Therefore, using a high voltage
to drive the solenoid to achieve a large magnetic force
is an effective and frequently used method to improve
the dynamic performance of the existing HSVs but will
also lead to higher cost and higher temperature rise. In
the above papers,1–22 methods can improve either the
dynamic performance or temperature rise characteris-
tics but still have some limitations when combining
both. In order to solve this contradiction, an intelligent
and practical method for both improving dynamic per-
formance and reducing temperature rise of high-speed
on/off solenoid valves is presented in this article. A vol-
tage source with an adjustable duty ratio is used to
drive the HSV but different from the literatures.1,2 The
active time of each excitation voltage with a different
duty ratio can be adaptively changed according to the
control signal from the controller and the current signal
from the circuit. The ideal operation state for the HSV
at each state will follow the following rules: a voltage
with full positive duty ratio drives the HSV rapidly, a
voltage with low positive duty ratio keeps the HSV
opened, a voltage with full negative duty ratio closes
the HSV quickly, and a voltage with zero duty ratio
keeps the HSV closed. Each switching of the duty ratio
is realized by signal triggering and the current feedback
principle.
This article is organized as follows. First, a mathe-
matical model of a tested HSV is built and then the the-
oretical delay time of switching processing is deduced.
Based on them, the method to improve switching per-
formance and reduce temperature rise is concluded.
Second, the intelligent PWM control method is intro-
duced, and the numerical simulation of the dynamic
performance of the HSV switching process is carried
out. Finally, a special hydraulic test HSV system is built
to measure dynamic performance and temperature rise,
and a set of experiments are carried out to verify the
improvements on dynamic performance and energy
efficiency by the intelligent PWM control.
Structure of the HSV
In this article, an HSV-3203S7 HSV is used as the study
object. It is a two-position, three-way, resting state
Zhong et al. 3

lf2
Fm = ð4Þ
2m0 S

where f is the magnetic flux, N is the number of coil

turns, Rm is the equivalent reluctance, Fm is the electro-
magnetic force, l is a constant related to the leakage of
magnetic flux, m0 is air permeability, and S is the cross-
sectional area of the armature.
The dynamic model of moving parts can be
written as

dx2 dx
m = Fm 6 Fh  k  Ps A ð5Þ
dt dt
Figure 1. Structure of the tested high-speed on/off valve. (1)
Supply ball, (2) separating pin, (3) returning ball, (4) valve where x is the displacement of the moving part, Fh is
housing, (5) push rod, (6) pole shoe, (7) armature, and (8) coil. the flow force, k is the coefficient of friction force, Ps is
the supply pressure, and A is the cross-sectional area of
the inlet P. The sign ‘‘ 6 ’’ shows the direction of the
closed HSV and is jointly developed by Guizhou flow force, ‘‘ + ’’ means the flow force and electromag-
Honglin Machinery Company, China and BKM netic force are in the same direction, and ‘‘’’ means
Company, America. A schematic structure is shown in they are in the opposite direction.
Figure 1. According to manufacturer’s specifications, Because there is a steady flow force acting on the
the rated pressure is 20 MPa, and the rated flow rate is operation port, the critical electromagnetic force can be
about 2.5 L/min. written as
Instead of the traditional spring structure, this HSV
operates without a reset spring but relies on the hydrau- Fcm = Ps A  Fs ð6Þ
lic pressure from the inlet P. When the coil is energized,
the supplying ball, returning ball, and separating pin where Fcm is the critical electromagnetic force and Fs is
are moved to the right by the electromagnetic force. As the steady flow force. At the critical value of Fcm , the
a result, operating port A is connected to inlet P and balls start to move and the valve’s state will change.
disconnected to outlet T. When the coil is de-energized, By combining equations (2), (4), and (6), the critical
the pin and balls are moved to the left by the hydraulic current can be written as
pressure from port P. As a result, the operating port A rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
is connected to outlet T and disconnected to inlet P. Rm 2m0 S(Ps A  Fs )
Ic = ð7Þ
N l
Theoretical analysis where Ic is the critical current.
Dynamic performance analysis Under fixed operating conditions, the trigger engage-
ment and disengagement of the solenoid are constant,
The dynamic performance of the high-speed solenoid and the corresponding engaged current (Ion ) and disen-
valve can be described by the following models: the gaged current (Ioff ) are also constant. Due to the influ-
electrical circuit model, the magnetic circuit model, and ence of coil inductances, a delay time will exist before
the dynamic mechanical model. the current increases to Ion in the energizing process of
The electrical circuit model can be written as the solenoid and will also exist in the de-energizing pro-
cess while the current is decreasing to Ioff .
dI dL
U = RI + L +I ð1Þ The transient process of the coil current can be writ-
dt dt ten as
where U is the driving voltage, R is the equivalent resis-   
tance, I is the current of coil, and L is the equivalent U R
I = Ii +  Ii 1  et L ð8Þ
inductance. R
The magnet circuit model can be written as
where Ii is the initial coil current. The delay time can be
IN = fRm ð2Þ written as

NF N2 L U  Ii R
L= = ð3Þ td = ln ð9Þ
I Rm R U  IR
4 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

where td is the delay time. Hence, the delay times of the

engaging and disengaging processes of the solenoid can
be, respectively, written as

Lon U  Ii R
tdon = ln ð10Þ
R U  Ion R
Loff U  Ii R
tdoff = ln ð11Þ
R U  Ioff R

where tdon is the engage delay time, Lon is the equivalent

inductance in the initial position before engaging where
the air gap is maximum, tdoff is the disengage delay time,
and Loff is the equivalent inductance in the initial posi-
tion before disengaging where air gap is minimum.
It can be seen from equations (10) and (11) that
large values of initial currents and excitation voltages
are helpful to reduce tdon and small ones are helpful to
reduce tdoff . Moreover, negative voltages are even better
for rapidly decreasing the current in the disengaging
process.
Temperature rise and energy consumption analysis
The temperature rise equation of the coil can be written
as
rh(IN )2
T= ð12Þ
2KT fbh2
where r is the resistivity of the coil, 0  h  1 is the
energized time, KT is the heat release coefficient, f is the
filling coefficient of the coil, and b and h are the width
and height of the coil, respectively. It is seen that small
values of current and short energizing times could effec-
tively decrease the coil temperature.
The thermal power equation of the coil can be writ-
ten as
xP
=n
(Ix2 Rtx )
x=0
P= xP
=n ð13Þ
tx
x=0
where P is the average thermal power, Ix is the current
in the coil at the sampling moment, and tx is the sam-
pling time.
Working principle of intelligent PWM
control
In this section, an intelligent PWM control method is
presented, which consists of a voltage source, a current
detector, and a controller. The hardware setup is shown
in Figure 2. The voltage is used as a power source to
drive the HSV. The controller directs the voltage source
to provide a high-frequency PWM (more than 10 kHz)
Figure 2. Hardware setup.
with four different duty ratios: full positive duty ratio,
low positive duty ratio, full negative duty ratio, and
zero duty ratio, which are applied to drive the HSV in
opening, maintaining open, closing, and maintaining
closed processes, respectively. Every high-frequency
PWM with a duty ratio can be regarded as an analog
power source. It is important to determine the active
durations of full positive duty ratio and full negative
duty ratio because too short a duration of full positive
duty ratio will not engage the electromagnet success-
fully, and too long a duration will cause a larger cur-
rent and higher temperature rise. Similarly, too short a
duration of negative full duty ratio will not disengage
the electromagnet successfully, and too long a duration
will cause a negative current. A large enough negative
current will engage the electromagnet again and
destroy the operational stability of the HSV. In order
to overcome this problem, a current feedback principle
is applied to estimate the operation state of HSV so
that the controller automatically changes the duty ratio
of the PWM according to the feedback values from the
current detector and the control signal from the
operator.
The operation principle of the controller is shown in
Figure 3. The control signal generated by the operator
is used to control the operation frequency and duty
ratio of the HSV. Before this control algorithm starts,
the engaged current Ion and disengaged current Ioff
under experimental conditions will be pretested by sta-
tic method and then used as a reference to set the cur-
rent trigger values and low positive duty ratio in the
controller. In order to make sure that the HSV is fully
switched, the engaged current trigger value set in the
controller should be a little larger than the tested
engaged current value, and the disengaged current trig-
ger value should be a little smaller than the tested dis-
engaged current value. The voltage with low positive
duty ratio is used to keep the electromagnet engaged,
so the product of the voltage level and low positive
duty ratio should be slightly larger than the product of
the equivalent resistance R and disengaged current trig-
ger value.
Zhong et al.
Start
Control signal NO
rising edge?
YES
Full positive
duty ratio
NO
IϊIonϋ
YES
Low positive
duty ratio
NO
Control signal
fall edge?
YES
Full negative
duty ratio
NO
IψIoff ϋ
YES
Zero duty
ratio
Figure 3. Control flowchart.
Once the system starts, the control signal begins at a
high level, and the controller directs the voltage source
to operate at a full positive duty ratio. Under the exci-
tation of maximum voltage, the current raises to Ion
rapidly, the electromagnet is engaged, and port A is
connected to inlet P. Once the current is larger than the
engaged current trigger value, the controller directs the
voltage to drive the HSV with a low positive duty ratio,
which is large enough to keep the electromagnet
engaged. At this condition, the current in the coil
slowly decreases and finally fluctuates at a value
slightly larger than Ioff to maintain the valve in an
opened state. The voltage drives the circuit with a low
positive duty ratio until the falling edge of the control
signal is reached. At this time, the full negative duty
ratio replaces the low positive duty ratio, and the cir-
cuit results in a rapid decrease in the current because of
unloading functionality of the maximum negative vol-
tage. When the current reduces to Ioff , the electromag-
net is disengaged, and port A is connected to inlet T.
The controller will be triggered to cause the voltage
source to switch to a zero duty ratio, and the current
drops slowly until the next rising edge of the control
signal. The system then repeats the above-mentioned
process.
Under this intelligent PWM control algorithm, a
maximum voltage level can achieve a fast response in
the engaging process, and current begins to drop
5
Figure 4. Current characteristics under the intelligent PWM
control.
automatically once it reaches the engaged current trig-
ger value, which can effectively avoid a useless addi-
tional increase of current in the coil. Voltage with an
appropriate low positive duty ratio is able to maintain
the electromagnet’s state while also making the initial
current lower at the moment of disengagement and
decreasing tdoff . Combined with a maximum negative
voltage level, tdoff is further decreased. Once current
drops below the disengaged current trigger value, the
voltage drives the HSV with zero duty ratio, and cur-
rent will decrease toward zero slowly, which will pro-
vide a higher initial current at the next moment of
electromagnet engagement and decrease tdon .
Cooperating with the maximum voltage of the next
cycle, the tdon can also be further decreased.
Benefiting from the adaptive switching of different
duty ratios, the current is always in the optimal state
during the entire process, as shown in Figure 4.
Improving upon methods which need to preset the
active time of each voltage or corresponding duty ratio,
the proposed method uses currents as feedback signals
to realize the adaptive switching of different duty
ratios. Even under the influence of varying coil resis-
tance caused by temperature increases, the switching
time of each duty ratio can be adjusted adaptively.
Therefore, this method not only effectively improves
the working frequency of HSVs but also reduces the
current in the coil, lessens temperature increase during
valve operations, extends the service life, and realizes
energy savings.
Numerical simulations
The dynamic models of the tested HSV with algorithms
of a matched controller and an intelligent PWM con-
trol are established as the experimental system, which is
shown in Figure 6. By disassembling the tested HSV,
some basic parameters are obtained in numerical simu-
lations and shown in Table 1.
The simulation results are built with a supply pres-
sure of 20 MPa and shown in Figure 5. The comparison
6 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Figure 5. Simulation results of transient pressure of port A: (a) switching on and (b) switching off.

Table 1. Parameters of simulations. Table 2. Simulation comparison of the dynamic performance.

Parameters Values Parameters Intelligent PWM Matched Performance

(ms) control controller improvement (%)
Armature radius (mm) 9
Armature length (mm) 17 tdon 1.91 3.18 39.9
Total coil turns 820 tdoff 0.93 2.42 61.6
Inner diameter of the coil (mm) 10 ton 7.05 8.15 13.5
Outer diameter of the coil (mm) 24 toff 7.18 8.50 15.5
Diameter of the operation hole (mm) 0.7
PWM: pulse-width modulation; ton : the total opening time; toff : total
closing time.
of the two control methods are shown in Table 2. It
could be seen that the delay time and switching time
are shortened greatly by adopting the intelligent PWM
control algorithm.

Experiment and results

Experimental setup
It is difficult to measure the dynamic performance of
the tested HSV directly by a conventional displacement
sensor because the HSV has a special ball structure.
However, the pressure at port A can be used to
evaluate the switching performance of the HSV, as
shown in Figure 6, and its experimental setup is shown
in Figure 7. The smaller the volume of the chamber
connected to port A, the more accurate the results will
be.23 The chamber volume connected to port A in the
tested valve block is about 1 cm3. An infrared thermo-
meter is used to detect the real-time temperature on the
surface of the valve coil. By actual measurement, it is Figure 6. Principle of experimental system.
known that the equivalent resistance of the circuit is
10.8 O, the equivalent inductance in the engaged initial
position is about 60 mH, in the disengaged initial posi- current trigger value is set as 0.8 A, and disengaged cur-
tion is about 68 mH, and the currents for opening and rent trigger value is set as 0.2 A.
closing states are 0.65 and 0.27 A, respectively. In order In the experimental setup, a NI 9505 DC servo
to ensure the HSV is fully switched, the engaged driver board with a maximum input voltage of 30 V is
Zhong et al.
Figure 7. Picture of the experimental system.
used to drive the HSV. Therefore, the low positive duty
ratio is set as 0.17, which will result in a hold current
0.2 A larger than the tested closing current value to
maintain the HSV in the open state. This driver board
can output high-frequency PWM (\40 kHz) of various
duty ratios. With an embedded current detection mod-
ule, this driver board is able to detect the circuit current
with an update speed of 20 ms for the real-time opera-
tion system. The operation frequency of this driver
board is set as 30 kHz, and the full duty ratio, low duty
ratio, negative duty ratio, and zero duty ratio are set as
100%, 17%, 2100%, and 0%, respectively.
Experimental results
A mature controller for the HSV is used in this article
and shown in Figure 8. With a 24 V rated input voltage,
the matched controller will generate a positive voltage
during the whole opening operation but a negative vol-
tage at the beginning of closing operation.
A series of experiments have been performed under
a supply pressure of 20 MPa. The dynamic performance
of the HSV under the matched controller is shown in
Figure 9. From Figure 9(a) and (b), it is seen the total
opening time is 11.67 ms including a delay time of
3.49 ms. The total closing time is 9.58 ms including a
delay time of 0.90 ms. Figure 9(c) and (d) show the criti-
cal working duty ratios of the HSV at the operation fre-
quency of 50 Hz. Adjusting the duty ratios of high
voltage to 38% and 74%, it is seen that the HSV can
work normally, but it is close to the critical state. The
HSV will not be opened totally if the duty ratio is less
than 38% and also will not be closed totally if the duty
ratio is greater than 74%.
7
Figure 8. Picture of the HSV controller.
Figure 10 shows the dynamic performance of the
HSV with an intelligent PWM control. Figure 10(a)
and (b) shows the opening time, including the delay
time of 1.54 ms, is 8.91 ms, which is shorter by 23.65%
when compared to the matched controller. The closing
time, including the delay time of 0.63 ms, is 7.95 ms,
which is shorter by 17.01% when compared to the
matched controller. Figure 10(c) and (d) shows that the
critical operation duty ratios, under a control signal of
50 Hz, are 15% and 81%, respectively. It is an expan-
sion of 83.3% when compared to the matched
controller.
Figure 11 shows the frequency performance of the
HSV with a control signal of 100 Hz and 50% duty
ratio. The curve in Figure 11(a) illustrates that the HSV
can switch normally, but the peak value of the curve in
Figure 11(b) is about 13 MPa. This means that the HSV
is not able to open completely under this condition. The
intelligent PWM control therefore effectively improves
the maximum working frequency of the HSV.
As shown in Figure 12, the initial currents of the
HSV switching off with a matched controller and an
intelligent PWM control are 2.25 and 0.45 A, respec-
tively. But for switching on with a matched controller,
they both are about 0.04 A. As shown in Table 3, the
delay times could be evaluated by equations (10) and
(11).
In order to study the temperature increase in the
valve, the current in the circuit under a control signal
of 20 Hz and 50% duty ratio is measured and shown in
Figure 12. Due to continuous supply of high voltages
from the matched controller, the current increases after
the valve opened. At the moment of closing, it leads to
a high initial current, a long time tdoff as well as a high
temperature in the coil, and has a negative influence on
the service life of the HSV. However, with the intelli-
gent PWM control, the duty ratio of the excitation vol-
tage is changed adaptively, and it effectively ensures
8 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Figure 9. Dynamic performance of the HSV under a matched controller: (a) switching on, (b) switching off, (c) minimum
controllable duty ratio (38%), and (d) maximum controllable duty ratio (74%).

that the HSV is fully switched and the current is kept
in an optimal state simultaneously. Based on the curves
in Figure 12 and equation (13), the heat energy con-
sumptions are calculated as 23.44 and 2.62 W for the
matched controller and the intelligent PWM control,
respectively. The energy-saving reaches to a dramatic
number of 88.8%.
In this working condition, the temperature increase
in the valve is measured under a room temperature of
26°C as shown in Figure 13. When the valve is under
the intelligent PWM control, there is no significant
change in temperature and stabilizes on a value of
about 28°C. However, when the valve is driven by the
matched controller, the valve temperature rapidly
increases and stabilizes about 93°C after 5 min.
Moreover, a faint odor of burning plastic can be
smelled around the tested HSV after about 30 min.
This means the plastic wrapped outside the coil has a
tendency to melt. Finally, it is found that the intelligent
PWM control effectively reduces the temperature
increase by 69.9% and greatly extends the service life
of the HSV. A comparison of the two methods in
experiments is summarized in Table 4.
Result analysis
In summary of the proposed theoretical evaluation,
simulation analysis and experimental measurements, it
indicates that the intelligent PWM control algorithm
can effectively improve the dynamic performance.
Experiment results show that the intelligent PWM con-
trol algorithm has great potential to reduce the tem-
perature rise and power consumption. Moreover, the
resultant errors of the proposed methods could be
caused by the lag of the pressure relative to the displa-
cement of the spool, the temperature changing of the
oil, and the shape of testing chamber. These factors
affecting experimental results were not considered in
numerical simulations.
Zhong et al. 9

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

Figure 10. Dynamic performance of the HSV with an intelligent PWM control: (a) switching on, (b) switching off, (c) minimum
controllable duty ratio (15%), and (d) maximum controllable duty ratio (81%).

Figure 11. Frequency performance of the HSV with different control methods: (a) intelligent PWM control and (b) matched
controller.
10 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Table 3. Theoretical evaluation of switching response.

Parameters (ms) Intelligent PWM control Matched controller Performance improvement (%)

tdon (ms) 1.88 2.48 24.2

tdoff (ms) 0.5 1.5 66.7

PWM: pulse-width modulation.

Table 4. Experimental comparison of the two methods.

Parameters Intelligent PWM control Matched controller Performance improvement (%)

Opening time (ms) 8.91 11.67 23.6

Closing time (ms) 7.95 9.58 17.0
Controllable working duty ratio (%) 15–81 38–74 83.3
Maximum operation frequency (Hz) 100 \100 –
Average energy consumption (W) 2.62 23.44 88.8
Temperature rise (°C) 28 93 69.9

PWM: pulse-width modulation.

(°C)

Figure 13. Temperature rise characteristic of the coil.

Figure 12. Current characteristic in the coil.
Conclusion
In this article, an intelligent PWM control method for
HSV is proposed, and the dynamic performance, power
consumption, and temperature characteristics of a
HSV are investigated. Theoretically, the intelligent
PWM control method can achieve a good dynamic per-
formance while reducing temperature rise and power
consumption. Both the simulation and experiment
results demonstrate that the proposed intelligent PWM
control method has obvious advantages compared to
the matched controller. Using the intelligent PWM
control, the opening time and closing time are shor-
tened by 23.6% and 17.0%, respectively, and the
controllable working duty ratio is extended by 83.3%.
The rise in temperature is also decreased by 69.9% dur-
ing valve operation, and the energy consumption of the
valve is reduced by 88.8%.
In the future study, the limit of the maximum input
voltage of the NI 9505 DC servo driver board could be
increased, and the intelligent PWM control method will
give full play to its advantage and has great potential to
improve the switching performance of HSVs while com-
bining a good temperature and energy characteristics.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Zhong et al.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial sup-
port for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article: This project was supported by the National Key
Technology Support Program of China (grant no. 2014BAF
02B00) and National Science and Technology Major Project
of China (grant no. 2012ZX04004021).
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