Flow analysis of hydraulic poppet control valve by means of computional fluid dynamics

The poppet control valve is one of the most widespread hydraulic components. The paper purpose is the evaluation of flow characteristics of poppet valve by means of a complete numerical analysis. The aim of this analysis is to evaluate the valve fluid dynamic performance, exploiting computational fluid dynamics (CFD) techniques, in order to give the reliable indications needed to define the valve design criteria and avoid expensive experimental tests. The numerical analysis was performed by using the commercial code of CFD, and the numerical results show the complete flow field inside the valve. Axisymmetric as well as three-dimensional valve model was considered and the simulation results also are verified with experimental results. The results have confirmed the good accuracy of the simplified CFD analysis based on 2D axisymmetric valve model being more efficient than full 3D approach and show this method as very useful to forecast flow characteristics of poppet control valves. Hydraulic control poppet valve, distribution of the velocity in layers of the fluid, computational grid in the modelled geometry, pressure distribution for axisymmetric and three-dimensional mode for different flow rate, fluid velocity distribution in valve metering section for axisymmetric and three-dimensional model for different flow rates, the example of streamlines, the comparison of flow characteristics are contained in the publication.