HYDRAULIC SYSTEM PROTECTION AGAINST CATASTROPHIC LINE FAILURE USING NEWLY DEVELOPED SAFETY VALVE

Abstract

Hydraulic hose and line failures in the field cause an extreme hazard to operators, work crews, and the environment. This happens more than is reported on a daily basis. Hydraulic line breaks are a good reason for the increased fluid replacement bills of nearly all industrial and mobile hydraulic equipments. Sadly, we can fairly say up to now, there has been no cost effective solution introduced to the industry to resolve this hazard effectively until now. In this paper, a patent pending device is proposed as a realistic and feasible solution to offer protection when catastrophic accidental line breaks occur. The device consists of a modified spool design, found in velocity fuses with an optimized dynamic surge chamber. A mathematical model to describe the valve’s dynamic response has been developed. This mathematical model has been used to assure the feasibility of the idea by simulating the valve’s response over a wide range of working pressures. The agreement between the simulation results and the prototype lab experiments validates the mathematical model. Results are presented and discussed. As this is pending patent, the article focuses on the feasibility of the idea, the valve diagrams are simplified and some critical data are omitted for the protection of the owner.