Application of Modelica/MWorks on modeling, simulation and optimization for electro-hydraulic servo valve system

Electro-hydraulic servo valve is a typical complicated multi-domain system constituted by mechanical, electric, hydraulic and magnetic components, which is widely used in electro-hydraulic servo systems such as construction machinery, heavy equipment, weapon and so forth. The traditional method of modeling and simulation of servo valve is based on block diagram or signal flow, which cannot describe the servo valve system from components level nor be used in modeling and simulation of overall servo systems. In the procedure of traditional method, computational causality must be involved in modeling of servo valve, which is inconvenient to execute modification on components or parameters. Modelica is an object-oriented modeling language which is suited for large, complex, heterogeneous and multi-domain systems. The key features of Modelica are multi-domain, object-oriented and non-causal, which are suitable for modeling of servo valve and make the model readable, reusable, and easy to modify. The simulation results show similar curves with traditional method. This new servo valve modeling and simulation method can provide the engineers a more efficient way to design and optimize a servo valve and an overall servo system. (C) 2012 The Chinese Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics.