High Flow Piezo Ceramic Valve for an Adaptive Vehicle Gas Spring Damper

摘要

This paper presents recent work on high flow ceramic valves. These valves enable setting the air flow of an adaptive Gas-Spring-Damper. A GSD comprises two air chambers of different size, working against each other. An air flow between the chambers reduces the potential energy and therewith one obtains a damped system. In fact, controlling the air flow means modulating the spring and damper rate of the GSD. The base for the valve is a structured piezo ceramic taking advantage of the 3,1-piezoelectric effect. In a hybrid structure with steel, the small displacement of the piezo results in an angular displacement of a solid ring. On the ring, there are multiple holes whose total surface equals the valve crossing section, which depends on the displacement. Integrated pressure sensors at the valve provide suitable inputs for the local controller. For further analysis, we plan to adopt an injection molded piezo ceramic.