Comprehensive performance improvement of a water hydraulic high-speed on/off valve for underwater hydraulic manipulators using a multi-objective optimization method

Abstract

In ocean exploration, underwater hydraulic manipulators (UHMs) driven by water hydraulics may become favored over oil-based systems because of their eco-friendliness and ability for continuous operation. A water hydraulic high-speed on/off valve (WHSV), with good sealing and fast response, may be used as a core control component of UHM. The comprehensive performance of the WHSV needs to be improved to enhance the accuracy, continuity, and reliability of UHM. In this study, the relationship between the negative voltage and the WHSV characteristics, including dynamic performance, power losses, and impact performance, is studied by finite element simulation. Furthermore, a multi-objective optimization method is proposed to improve the comprehensive performance of the WHSV. This method integrates the optimal Latin hypercube sampling method, universal Kriging surrogate model, non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II, and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution methods to optimize the equivalent amplitude and duration of the negative voltage. Our findings reveal that the closing time decreases with the increase in the equivalent amplitude and duration of the negative voltage, while the opposite is observed in the power losses and maximum impact equivalent stress of the valve seat. Optimization results show a slight 3.3% increase in closing time of the WHSV but significant reductions in total power loss (9.8%), maximum impact equivalent stress (14.5%), and maximum total deformation (19.8%). This study provides a practical optimization approach for enhancing the comprehensive performance of the WHSV for improved UHM operation.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

water hydraulic / high-speed on/off valve / dynamic response / power loss / impact characteristics / multi-objective optimization / underwater hydraulic manipulator

References

[1] Carlucho I, Stephens D W, Barbalata C. An adaptive data-driven controller for underwater manipulators with variable payload. Applied Ocean Research, 2021, 113: 102726

[2] Meng L K, Wu D F, Gao H, Ye X J, Liu H H, Liu Y S. Multi-objective optimization of a wet electromagnet-driven water hydraulic high-speed on/off valve for underwater manipulator in deep sea. Measurement, 2025, 239: 115443

[3] Shang D Y, Li X P, Yin M, Li F J. Vibration suppression method for flexible link underwater manipulator considering torsional flexibility based on adaptive PI controller with nonlinear disturbance observer. Ocean Engineering, 2023, 274: 114111

[4] Liu Y S, Dong J, Wu S, Wu D F, Deng Y P, Ji H. Theoretical research on the dynamic characteristics of electrohydraulic servo valve (EHSV) in deep sea environment. Ocean Engineering, 2019, 192: 105957

[5] Sarkar A, Maji K, Chaudhuri S, Saha R, Mookherjee S, Sanyal D. Actuation of an electrohydraulic manipulator with a novel feedforward compensation scheme and PID feedback in servo-proportional valves. Control Engineering Practice, 2023, 135: 105490

[6] Siuko M, Pitkäaho M, Raneda A, Poutanen J, Tammisto J, Palmer J, Vilenius M. Water hydraulic actuators for ITER maintenance devices. Fusion Engineering and Design, 2003, 69(1–4): 141–145

[7] Wu D F, Wang X, Ma Y X, Wang J C, Tang M L H, Liu Y S. Research on the dynamic characteristics of water hydraulic servo valves considering the influence of steady flow force. Flow Measurement and Instrumentation, 2021, 80: 101966

[8] Nieminen P, Esque S, Muhammad A, Mattila J, Väyrynen J, Siuko M, Vilenius M. Water hydraulic manipulator for fail safe and fault tolerant remote handling operations at ITER. Fusion Engineering and Design, 2009, 84(7–11): 1420–1424

[9] LiaoY Y, Zhao W B, FengJ L, LianZ S. Optimization of the control performance of a novel 3/2 water proportional directional valve with a special position following servo mechanism. IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, 2024: 1–10

[10] PaloniittyM, Linjama M. A miniature on/off valve concept for high performance water hydraulics. In: Proceedings of the ASME/BATH 2017 Symposium on Fluid Power and Motion Control. Sarasota: ASME, 2017, V001T01A025

[11] Nie S L, Liu Q T, Ji H, Hong R D, Nie S. Integration of ARIMA and LSTM models for remaining useful life prediction of a water hydraulic high-speed on/off valve. Applied Sciences, 2022, 12(16): 8071

[12] Park S H, Kitagawa A, Kawashima M. Water hydraulic high-speed solenoid valve Part 1: development and static behaviour. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part I: Journal of Systems and Control Engineering, 2004, 218(5): 399–409

[13] Siivonen L, Paloniitty M, Linjama M, Sairiala H, Esqué S. Digital valve system for ITER remote handling – design and prototype testing. Fusion Engineering and Design, 2019, 146: 1637–1641

[14] Gao Q, Zhu Y C, Wu C W, Jiang Y L. Development of a novel two-stage proportional valve with a pilot digital flow distribution. Frontiers of Mechanical Engineering, 2021, 16(2): 420–434

[15] Wang P, Cheng Y W, Linjama M, Yao J, Shan D S. A novel equivalent continuous metering control with a uniform switching strategy for digital valve system. IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, 2023, 28(5): 2449–2460

[16] LiuZ Z, Zhang Z X, NieX T. Second modulate method of the high speed on-off electromagnetic valve and its application to pressure regulating valves. In: Proceedings of IECON 2007––33rd Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society. IEEE, 2007, 534–538

[17] Yue D L, Li L F, Wei L J, Liu Z G, Liu C, Zuo X K. Effects of pulse voltage duration on open-close dynamic characteristics of solenoid screw-in cartridge valves. Processes, 2021, 9(10): 1722

[18] Zhang B, Zhong Q, Ma J E, Hong H C, Bao H M, Shi Y, Yang H Y. Self-correcting PWM control for dynamic performance preservation in high speed on/off valve. Mechatronics, 2018, 55: 141–150

[19] Zhong Q, Mao Y X, Xu E G, Wang X L, Li Y B, Yang H Y. Fast dynamics and low power losses of high-speed solenoid valve based on optimized pre-excitation control algorithm. Thermal Science and Engineering Progress, 2024, 47: 102363

[20] Xie N L, Zhang Z D, Yin C B. Power losses and thermodynamic analysis of the solenoid fuel injector. International Journal of Applied Electromagnetics and Mechanics, 2017, 54(3): 405–419

[21] Liniger J, Stubkier S, Soltani M, Pedersen H C. Early detection of coil failure in solenoid valves. IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, 2020, 25(2): 683–693

[22] Sun Z Y, Li G X, Wang L, Wang W H, Gao Q X, Wang J. Effects of structure parameters on the static electromagnetic characteristics of solenoid valve for an electronic unit pump. Energy Conversion and Management, 2016, 113: 119–130

[23] Cheng Q, Zhang Z D, Xie N L. Power losses and dynamic response analysis of ultra-high speed solenoid injector within different driven strategies. Applied Thermal Engineering, 2015, 91: 611–621

[24] Wang L, Li G X, Xu C L, Xi X, Wu X J, Sun S P. Effect of characteristic parameters on the magnetic properties of solenoid valve for high-pressure common rail diesel engine. Energy Conversion and Management, 2016, 127: 656–666

[25] Zhao J H, Wang M L, Wang Z J, Grekhov L, Qiu T, Ma X Z. Different boost voltage effects on the dynamic response and energy losses of high-speed solenoid valves. Applied Thermal Engineering, 2017, 123: 1494–1503

[26] Zhao J H, Yue P F, Grekhov L, Ma X Z. Hold current effects on the power losses of high-speed solenoid valve for common-rail injector. Applied Thermal Engineering, 2018, 128: 1579–1587

[27] Zhong Q, Wang X L, Zhou H Z, Xie G, Hong H C, Li Y B, Chen B, Yang H Y. Investigation into the adjustable dynamic characteristic of the high-speed/valve with an advanced pulsewidth modulation control algorithm. IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, 2022, 27(5): 3784–3797

[28] Zhong Q, Xu E G, Xie G, Wang X L, Li Y B. Dynamic performance and temperature rising characteristic of a high-speed on/off valve based on pre-excitation control algorithm. Chinese Journal of Aeronautics, 2023, 36(10): 445–458

[29] JinD P, Hu H Y. Collision Vibration and Control. Beijing: Science Press, 2005, 29–30 (in Chinese)

[30] Cavalieri F J, Luengo C, Risso J, Zenklusen F, Cardona A. Numerical and experimental stress analysis of an internal-combustion engine valve during the closing event. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part D: Journal of Automobile Engineering, 2014, 228(5): 479–489

[31] Zhang X Y, Yan X, Wu H, Yang Y, Luo Y, Zhou X J. Dynamic analysis of impact on needle valve assembly. Vibroengineering Procedia, 2019, 25: 188–193

[32] LiuZ W, Yu Y Z, ZhaiQ. Impact characteristics simulation analysis of high pressure valve based on workbench/ls-dyna. In: Proceedings of 2019 International Conference on Intelligent Transportation, Big Data & Smart City. Changsha: IEEE, 2019, 267–269

[33] Gao Q. Investigation on the transient impact characteristics of fast switching valve during excitation stage. Journal of Low Frequency Noise, Vibration and Active Control, 2022, 41(4): 1322–1338

[34] Wang D F, Xu W C. Fatigue failure analysis and multi-objective optimisation for the hybrid (bolted/bonded) connection of magnesium-aluminium alloy assembled wheel. Engineering Failure Analysis, 2020, 112: 104530

[35] Jun N, Seok C S, Park K. Evaluation of fatigue life of automotive engine valves considering the dynamic behavior. International Journal of Automotive Technology, 2022, 23(6): 1717–1726

[36] Wu S, Zhao X Y, Li C F, Jiao Z X, Qu F Y. Multiobjective optimization of a hollow plunger type solenoid for high speed on/off valve. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 2018, 65(4): 3115–3124

[37] Taghizadeh M, Ghaffari A, Najafi F. Modeling and identification of a solenoid valve for PWM control applications. Comptes Rendus Mécanique, 2009, 337(3): 131–140

[38] Yin H F, Sha J H, Zhou J, Yang X F, Wen G L, Liu J. A novel metamodel-based multi-objective optimization method using adaptive multi-regional ensemble of metamodels. Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization, 2023, 66(4): 95

[39] Xia J Y, Huang R Y, Liao Y X, Li J P, Chen Z Y, Li W H. Digital twin-assisted gearbox dynamic model updating toward fault diagnosis. Frontiers of Mechanical Engineering, 2023, 18(2): 32

[40] Liu Q T, Yin F L, Nie S L, Hong R D, Ji H. Multi-objective optimization of high-speed on-off valve based on surrogate model for water hydraulic manipulators. Fusion Engineering and Design, 2021, 173: 112949

[41] Li T, Zhang Y T, Liang Y X, Yang Y, Jiao J. Multiobjective optimization research on the response time of a pneumatic pilot-operated high speed on/off valve. International Journal of Applied Electromagnetics and Mechanics, 2021, 65(1): 109–127

[42] Yu Z Q, Yang L, Zhao J H, Grekhov L. Research on multi-objective optimization of high-speed solenoid valve drive strategies under the synergistic effect of dynamic response and energy loss. Energies, 2024, 17(2): 300

[43] Wang F, Chen Y. Design and experimental study of oil-based pressure-compensated underwater hydraulic system. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part I: Journal of Systems and Control Engineering, 2014, 228(4): 221–232

[44] Wu J B, Li L, Zou X L, Wang P L, Wei W. Working performance of the deep-sea valve-controlled hydraulic cylinder system under pressure-dependent viscosity change and hydrodynamic effects. Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, 2022, 10(3): 362

[45] Song W T, Yang C B, Cui W C, Lei Y, Hong J, Wang Z H, Hu Z Y. Study of pressure-balanced oil-filled (PBOF) technology. Ocean Engineering, 2022, 260: 111757

[46] Wu J B, Li L. Influence of ambient pressure on sealing performance of O-ring in deep-sea hydraulic system. Ocean Engineering, 2022, 245: 110440

[47] Xu W C, Wang D F. Fatigue and impact analysis and multi-objective optimization design of Mg/Al assembled wheel considering riveting residual stress. Frontiers of Mechanical Engineering, 2022, 17(3): 45

[48] Wu D F, Cheng Q, Yu Q, Guan Z W, Deng Y P, Liu Y S. Influence of high hydrostatic pressure on tribocorrosion behavior of HVOF WC-10Co-4Cr coating coupled with Si₃N₄ in artificial seawater. International Journal of Refractory Metals and Hard Materials, 2022, 108: 105936

[49] Guo M, Le D K, Sun X, Yoon J Y. Multi-objective optimization of a novel vortex finder for performance improvement of cyclone separator. Powder Technology, 2022, 410: 117856

[50] Xiao Q, Xu H Q. A mapping-based universal Kriging model for order-of-addition experiments in drug combination studies. Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, 2021, 157: 107155

[51] Yang M D, Zhang D Q, Wang F, Han X. Efficient local adaptive Kriging approximation method with single-loop strategy for reliability-based design optimization. Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, 2022, 390: 114462

[52] Zou D X, Li S, Xuan K F, Ouyang H B. A NSGA-II variant for the dynamic economic emission dispatch considering plug-in electric vehicles. Computers & Industrial Engineering, 2022, 173: 108717

[53] Allouhi H, Allouhi A, Jamil A. Multi-objective optimization of a CSP-based dish stirling field layout using genetic algorithm and TOPSIS method: case studies in Ouarzazate and Madrid. Energy Conversion and Management, 2022, 254: 115220

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52122502), the National Key Research & Development Program of China (Grant No. 2022YFC2805705), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China (Grant No. YCJJ20230358), and the Key Technology Tackling Project of Cold Spring Device of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China (Grant No. LQ-GJ-01) for their financial support for this research.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2024 Higher Education Press