Optimized Damping in Cylinder Drives Using the Meter-out Orifice - Design and Experimental Verification

摘要

This paper analyses the damping of a flow controlled cylinder with a mass load and an outlet orifice. By using linear models, a mathematical expression for the damping is derived. It is shown that the volumes on each side of the piston have a high impact on the damping. In case of a small volume on the inlet side, the damping becomes low. However, the most important thing is to design the outlet orifice area properly. There exists an optimal orifice dimension; both smaller and larger orifice areas give low damping independently of the size of the volumes. In this paper a design is proposed of the outlet orifice area that optimizes the damping of the system. Experimental results which confirm the theoretical expectations are also presented. The conclusions are that without an outlet orifice, the hydraulic system will not contribute with any damping at all. Furthermore, large dead volumes in the cylinder will increase the damping, but at the expense of the system's efficiency.