Effects of Pulse Voltage Duration on Open–Close Dynamic Characteristics of Solenoid Screw-In Cartridge Valves

The hydraulic high-speed on/off valve (HSV)—the critical core component of digital hydraulic technology—has a special structural design and manufacture due to its fast opening and closing, which results in high prices and maintenance costs. The solenoid screw-in cartridge valve (SCV) is widely used in the hydraulic industry because of its merits, such as mature technology, reliable quality, and low cost. The contribution of this study is to replace the high-speed on/off valve with the SCV in some areas of application by introducing positive and negative pulse voltage control for the coil of the SCV, which only modifies the control circuit and needs no change in structure. Based on the analysis of the structure of the SCV, the simulation model was developed in AMESim and validated by experiments to investigate the effects of the pulse voltage duration on the open–close dynamic characteristics and find the optimal pulse voltage duration, so that the SCV can open or close in the shortest time to reduce energy loss as far as possible. The simulation results showed that the positive and negative pulse voltage could quicken the rising or declining speed of the coil current and dramatically decrease the opening and closing delay time. By the experimental comparison with the original control method, the opening time of the SCV decreased from 30 ms to 13 ms, and the closing time was reduced from 139 ms to 14 ms.