Characteristic Analysis and Control for High Speed

Proportional Solenoid Valve*

Qirui Xu
School of Advanced Engineering
Beihang University
Beijing, China
Guo Wei
School of Transportation Science and Engineering
Beihang University
Beijing, China
Xingzhong Li
Volvo Cars Engine Co.Ltd
Beijing, China


AbstractResponse speed and control current accuracy are
two critical factors of high speed proportional solenoid valves
precise control on the oil pressure of hydraulic system. As an
integrated system, solenoid valve including several complex
physical system involving electronic, electromagnetic, mechanical
and hydraulic system. This paper analyses the current and
pressure characteristic curve of the high speed proportional
solenoid valve by using the multi-physical field coupling
modelingand simulation method. According to the simulation
results, the control of dither current can efficiently reduce the
hysteresis effect of the solenoid valve. And this is verified by the
following performance test of solenoid valve. By accomplish the
precise current closed-loop control and dither control of the
solenoid valve on circuit, this property can be used to improve
solenoid valve pressure control accuracy.
Keywordssolenoidvalve;dither control; hysteresis
effect;simulation
I. INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, high speed solenoid valve is applied in more
and more complex control objects for its simple structure, high
response speed and good stability. High speed solenoid valve
often uses PWM input[1-2]. Through the adjustment of the
duty ratio, we can control the on-off time of the valve and
realize the adjustment of the current which then regulates the
output pressure of the solenoid valve. Since the spool stroke of
the proportional solenoid valve is very short and magnetic coil
of the solenoid valve is an inductive element, the
understanding of the nonlinear characteristic of the valve and
the precise control of the current are necessary in order to
improve the accuracy of the pressure control.
This paper, based on the Simulation X platform, a
multidisciplinary dynamics simulation software, analyses the
structure of solenoid valve and builds the electronic,
electromagnetic and mechanical characteristic model. We first
drew the current and pressure characteristic curve based on the
simulation, and detected that there is hysteresis effect in
pressureregulation of the solenoid valve. The precise control
and the dither control of the valves current is then
accomplished by using the low-end constant current control
chip. Appling the dither current in the pressure control test
shows that the dither control can efficiently reduce the
hysteresis effect of the solenoid valve.
II. STRUCTURE OF SOLENOID VALVE
Fig. 1 shows the structure of a high speed proportional
solenoid valve which is mainly adopted in circumstance which
requires high-precision hydraulic pressure control. It is a kind
of normally open valve, mainly formed byan armature, a coil, a
spool, aspring and etc. By adjusting the current in the coil, the
magnetic field strength through the armature is changed. The
resultant of the electromagnetic force and the spring force then
changes the position of the armature. Pushed by the armature,
the movements of the spool is then regulates the opening of the
solenoid valve which directly adjust the pressure.

Fig. 1. Sturcture diagram of a force variable solenoid valve
III. MODELING OF THE SOLENOID VALVE
The dynamic characteristics of the force variable solenoid
valve can be described as (1), using the spool as the analysis
object:
spool d m fr hy fl
m x C x K x F F F F + + = 1
In (1),
spool
m stands for the mass of the spool;
d
C is the
damping coefficient; K represents the stiffness coefficient of
the spring; x stands for the displacement of the spool; x is the
*Project supported by National Science and Technology Support
Program(2011BAG09B00) and National Natural Science Foundation of
China(51105017)

1. Armature 2.Coil 3.Mandrill 4.Spool 5.Spring
6. Filter screen
! ? 3 +
b
1578
978-1-4673-6322-8/13/$31.00 c 2013 IEEE
velocity of the spool; x is the spools acceleration .
m
F ,
fr
F ,
hy
F
and
fl
F stand for the electromagnetic force, static hydraulic
pressure force, sliding friction force and the axial steady flow
force on the spool caused by the changes in momentum of the
fluid.
According to the force analysis of the spool(see (1)), the
multi-physical dynamic model of the solenoid valve is built as
showed in Fig. 2, the model consists electromagnetic circuit
system, mechanical system and hydraulic system. In order to
calculate the electromagnetic force on the spool, the
electromagnetic part in the solenoid valve can be equivalent to
the electromagnetic circuit showed in Fig. 2. It consists of 5
ferromagnetic magnet resistive (R1-R5), a length variable
circular air gap elements (F1) , a fixed leakage magnetic field
element (G1), etc. The spring resistance and the friction during
the movement of the armature is also considered in the
mechanical circuit, as well as the pressure difference caused by
oil flowing into the cavity of the solenoid valve. The pressure
loss due to the reduction the valve edge gap during the
movement of spool is simulated in the hydraulic circuit too.

Fig. 2. Multi-physical dynamic model of the high speed solenoid valve
IV. ANALYSIS OF THE SOLENOID VALVE SIMULATION
RESULTS
The operating characteristics of the solenoid valve can be
described by the relationship between the current and pressure.
After the structure modeling as Fig. 2 shows, the operating
pressure of the solenoid valve under different current can be
dynamically simulated by computer simulation. Fig. 3 and Fig.
4 respectively show the current-pressure curve without and
with dither current. As Fig. 3 shows, the solenoid valve
pressure increases as the current increases. The current has a
linear relationship with the pressure between 400mA-800mA.
The linear relationship between current and pressure is broken
while the current is between 0-400mA or 800-1200mA.
During the rising and the descending process of the current,
there is severe hysteresis effect exists in pressure. Due to the
machining accuracy of the elements and hysteretic
characteristics of the magnetic material, the hydraulic
hysteresis is unavoidable, and the hysteresis will eventually
affects the pressure control accuracy. However, the dither
current control technique can effectively reduce the hysteretic
level. Dither control signal is an additional slight fluctuating
signal add to the control current of the magnetic coil. The
current fluctuation lead by the dither signal will keep the spool
remains in the dither state. Thus, the spool will stay in kinetic
friction condition instead of the blocked state lead by static
friction. Fig. 4 shows the current-pressure characteristic curve
after adding a sinusoidal dither current with the frequency of
50Hz and the amplitude of 70mA. The simulation result shows
that dither current can efficiently reducer the hysteretic effect
of the oil pressure.

Fig. 3. Voltage regulation characteristic curve of solenoid valve
withoutdither current

Fig. 4. Voltage regulation characteristic curve of solenoid valve with dither
current
V. SOLENOID VALVE CURRENT CONTROL AND TEST
The electronic characteristics of the solenoid valve
areequivalent with a inductor connected with a resistor in series.
Hence, DC power supply is commonly adopted to supply the
proportional solenoid valve in engineering practice. The duty
ratio of the PWM wave is controlled by low-end drive method
to realize control of the current. PWM is one of the basic
function of a controller. The duty ratio and the frequency
characteristic of the PWM waveform can be changed by setting
the register of the chips PWM module. The IO port of the chip
with the timing module is also able to output the PWM wave.
But this control method has no current feedback and it is
difficult to realize current close-loop control. Therefore, in the
paper, the TLE7242 chip from Infineon Corporation is used. It
has a very good performance in anti-interference and four drive
channel. TLE7242, operating in the slave mode, contains sorts
of integrated module, including a data register group module
which receive the control parameters transmitted from the host;
0 ?00 +00 b00 800 !000 !?00
!
?
3
+

b
Cuutm^)
2013 IEEE 8th Conference on Industrial Electronics and Applications (ICIEA) 1579
a PWM module generating PWM withdifferent frequency; a
dither signal generator module that generates dither signals
with different frequency and amplitude; a A/D module
sampling from external proportional solenoid coil current ; the
PI regulator module which can do the PI regulation to the
system by setting the KP and KI parameters on the host. Since
the chip integrated the above modules, the whole circuit has the
digital characteristics which is very different from the
conventional analog signal control circuit. The operating
principle diagram of TLE7242G is showed as Fig. 5, with a
closed-loop control system inside the chip. The frontal channel
of the system is as following. Preset the current as well as the
frequency and the amplitude of the dither signal through the
internal data register group. Then, do the PI regulation to the
preset current value of the loaded dither signal. Finally, all
these parameters control the PWM module output a PWM with
a certain duty ratio through the OUT pin of TLE7242G. On the
other hand, sampling the external proportional solenoid coil
current through the POS and NEG pin of TLE7242G,
amplifying the signal inside the chip and the A/D conversion
make up the feedback channel of the system.
VBat
Solenoid
R1
Rsense
CURRENT
SETPOINT
PRE-Load
PWM
CLK
CURRENT
READ
Autozero
Value
on
Autozero
Value
off
POS
NEG
OUT
Drive Circuit
TLE7242
Internal control logic

Fig. 5. The constant current control workflow of the solenoid valve
A. The Automatic adjustment of the PWM duty ratio
Under the PI closed-loopcontrol inside TLE7242 chip,
PWM duty ratio can be adjusted automatically according to the
set current and feedback current. Fig. 6 is the transient mode
state diagram. When the current of the solenoid valve is in the
steady state, the duty ratio of PWM remains steady. During the
process of changing from steady state Current I to steady state
Current II, the TLE7242 OUT pin PWM waveform mainly
goes through tree stages:
1) A phase
When chip receives a new current, Current II, if the present
period of the OUT pin PWM waveform is not over, the
waveform will not change into B phase until the next period
starts.
2) B phase
During B phase, the TLE7242 OUT pin will be set HIGH
in order to ensure that the solenoid valves current reaches the
target value, Current II, quickly. When the current reaches the
target value, C phase begins.
3) C phase
The main function of C phase is to ensure the current of the
solenoid valve can remains near the target value, Current II,
before the next period comes.

Fig. 6. Transient mode state diagram
B. The realization principle of the dither current
The main parameters that affect dither current are dither
amplitude and dither frequency. The dither current controls
realization is based on the TLE7242 internal logic function as
Fig. 5 shows. The dither current wave is in the sinusoidal
waveform. As Fig. 7 shows, the chip will calculate the target
current
k
I in each PWM period based on the preset dither
amplitude and frequency (70mA, 50Hz). And thus control the
PWM duty ratio in OUT pin of TLE7242, and realize the
control of dither current. It can be seen from Fig. 7 that
although the target current is fixed, the PWM duty ratio is
variable within a dither period due to the dither control.

1580 2013 IEEE 8th Conference on Industrial Electronics and Applications (ICIEA)
Dither Period
P
P
Dither
Amplitude
U
Time
v
o
l
t
a
g
e
C
u
r
r
e
n
t
Fig. 7. The principle diagram of dither current realizatio
C. The solenoid valve dither current control t
Fig. 8 is the result of the solenoid valv
control experiments, and the target control
650mA. The PWM duty ratio of the OUT pin
without the dither current control. The measu
equals the target value. When the dither c
enabled, the PWM duty ratio of the OUT pin
fixed. The solenoid valve current will do
vibration near 650mA. Because of the changi
the solenoid valve current will keep dither
scope. This will keep the spool under the state
friction, which can largely improve the respo
solenoid valve.
400
500
600
700
800
0 5 10 15
Time(ms)
C
u
r
r
e
n
t
(
m
A
)
Dither
Enable
Setpoint
Current
Fig. 8. Result of solenoid valve dither current experimen
VI. PERFORMANCE TEST OF THE SOLEN
In order to test and verify the simulation
the accuracy of the solenoid valve pressu
solenoid valve test desk, Fig. 10 shows, is bu
principle showed by Fig. 9. The test desk main
oil pump, a flowmeter, a throttle valve, a pre
the solenoid valve. The entrance pressure of th
can be measured by adjusting the valve current
Q
Pump
Filter
Tank
Pressure
sensor
Solenoid
Fig. 9. The principle diagram of the solenoid valve test d
PWM
Period
t

on
test
ve dither current
current is set as
n is a fixed value
ured current value
urrent control is
will no longer be
o the sinusoidal
ing of duty ratio,
under the local
e of slight kinetic
ond speed of the
20
5V
PWM
V
o
l
t
a
g
e
(
V
)

nts
NOID VALVE
n results, and test
ure control, the
uilt based on the
nly consists of an
essure meter and
he solenoid valve
t.

desk
Fig. 10. The solenoid valve test desk
Fig. 11 shows the measured
solenoid valve current and the pres
is enabled and disabled. The resul
simulation result as showed in Fig
dither current control, the hystere
valve pressure is reduced significa
current is between 300-900mA. In t
main operating range, the advantag
significant. The hysteresis effect of
affects the accuracy of the pressure
the pressure respond speed. Therefo
effect is one of the key factors in
solenoid valve.
0
300 600
1
2
3
4
5
6
Dith
Ena
Dither
Disable
Current(mA
P
r
e
s
s
u
r
e
(
b
a
r
)
Fig. 11. The measured solenoid valves curre
VII. CONCLU
The current and pressure chara
speed solenoid valve is desc
electromagnetic, mechanical and hy
Simulation results show that the co
can reduce the hysteresis effect of th
The hardware circuit is design
chip to realize the dither current
experiments showthat the valves
dither control is a periodic sinusoid
when the target current value is a co
The performance test experim
verifies that the dither control can r
and improve the precision ofpressur
valve.

relationship between the
sure with the dither control
t basically agrees with the
g. 3 and Fig. 4. Under the
esis effect of the solenoid
antly, especially when the
that range, which is also the
ge of dither control is more
the solenoid valve not only
control, but also influences
ore, reducing the hysteresis
optimization control of the
900 1200
her
able
A)

ent- pressure curve
USION
acteristic curve of the high
cribed by building the
ydraulic simulation model.
ontrol of the dither current
he solenoid valve.
ned by using the TLE7242
control. The current text
current controlled by the
dal wave with a little dither
onstant.
ent of the solenoid valve
reduce the hysteresis effect
re regulation of the solenoid

2013 IEEE 8th Conference on Industrial Electronics and Applications (ICIEA) 1581

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1582 2013 IEEE 8th Conference on Industrial Electronics and Applications (ICIEA)