Konstantin Krivenkov

Extending the operation range of electrorheological actuators for vibration control through novel designs

Electrohydraulic actuators with electrorheological fluids were lately introduced for active vibration decoupling. They are suited especially for active isolation of heavy machines and apparatuses. Compared to conventional electrodynamic or hydraulic actuators, these electrorheological systems have considerable advantages because of very high force density and broad frequency range. However, the potential of the electrorheological technology does not remain used up to now completely. In this study, new designs are introduced, which extend the operation borders of the electrorheological actuators for vibration decoupling by utilization of hydrostatic as well as to hydrodynamic forces. The theoretically determined dynamic behaviors of the new actuator principles form the basis for the choice and adaptation of the electrohydraulic systems to special vibration isolation problems and show the advantages to conventional hydraulic actuators.

High-pressure electrorheological valve with full pQ-functionality for servohydraulic applications

Stationary and mobile hydraulic systems require switching increasing velocity, power and efficiency. Usually, their performance mainly faces physical constraints by the valves. These are in particular electrical and magnetic losses as well as various flow saturation effects. Compared to conventional valves, some of these physical constraints do not appear in electrorheological valves. However, electrorheological valves being employed as valves in conventional hydraulic systems were previously unimaginable due to the small controllable pressure differences. The presented new kind of electrorheological valve obtains a significant performance enhancement by combining the potential of conventional and electrorheological systems.

Electrorheological Self-Amplifiying Microvalve

This paper presents the design structure of an electrorheological self-amplifying microvalve for electrorheological fluids. This self-amplifying valve can thereby be devided into two main parts, the steering valve and the self-amplifying unit. The first step - combining a conventional electrorheological valve with a self-amplifying unit is one very important aspect and already induced to a promising result in the past. In a next step the conventional electrorheological valve is replaced by an electrorheological microvalve. Smaller dimensions are the final result. The simulation results of the whole system based on measurement results of the electrorheological microvalve are presented in this paper.