Dynamic characteristics of pneumatic flow control valve driven by PZT vibrator

Pneumatic actuators have several advantages, which are high compliance, light weight, safety, and low-cost. Valve that can realize a continuous flowing quantity control is necessary to control pneumatic actuators precisely, while in general, such a valve is large. This study aims at the development of a new flow control valve that has a lightweight and simple structure can control flow-rate continuously. This valve uses piezoelectric transducer which is driven at resonance mode and it can control flow-rate by controlling the amplitude of the particles excitation. The flow control valve in this report is 10 mm in diameter, 9 mm in height and 2.5 g. We had already achieved ON/OFF control of large flowing quantity with the valve. In this report, we research dynamic characteristics of the valve. As the results of experiments, we found that the valve response time is 29 ms and flow rate change is almost equal to control signal.