Chaos in a hydraulic control valve

In this paper we have studied the instability and chaos occurring in a pilot-type poppet valve circuit. The system consists of a poppet valve, an upstream plenum chamber, a supply pipeline and an orifice inserted between the pelnum and the pipeline. Although the poppet valve rests on the seat stably for a supply pressure lower than the cracking pressure, the circuit becomes unstable for an initial disturbance beyond a critical value and develops a self-excited vibration. In this unstable region, chaotic vibration appears at the period-doubling bifurcation. We have investigated the stability of the circuit and the chaotic phenomenon numerically, and elucidated it by power spectra, a bifurcation diagram and Lyapunov exponent calculations, showing that the phenomenon follows the Feigenbaum route to chaos. (C) 1997 Academic Press Limited.