A Small Three-way Hydraulic Valve Using Particle Excitation Controlled by One Piezoelectric Transducer

The purpose of this research is to develop a small hydraulic flow valve for a control of hydraulic actuators. The hydraulic actuator systems for multiple-degree-of-freedom mechanisms have large volume because such systems require many large control components. In our previous research, we applied a small flow control valve using a particle excitation by a piezoelectric vibrator to a hydraulic system. In addition, we developed a threeway valve using two vibrators, and applied this three-way valve to a fluidic actuator. In this paper, we have designed, fabricated and evaluated a three-way valve using a single piezoelectric transducer. As inlet and outlet ports have different resonant frequencies, the piezoelectric transducer can switch the opening port oscillated by different driving frequencies. We have evaluated the vibration condition of the transducer and flow rate characteristics of the fabricated three-way valve.