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The Impact of Geometric Design on Energy Efficiency of Pneumatic Booster Valves with Energy Recovery

Jongha Lim, Kotaro Tadano, and Toshiharu Kagawa
Laboratory for Future Interdisciplinary Research of Science and Technology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Japan

Abstract—Pneumatic Booster Valves (PBV), which amplify air pressure without any electricity or air compressor, has commonly applied to facilities such as automobile production lines. However, because PBV is still not efficient enough, Pneumatic Booster Valve with Energy Recovery (PBV-R), which has one additional function that recovers energy, has been proposed and validated by previous studies. Nonetheless, a parametric study of the optimal shape of PBV-R has not been experimentally studied yet. Thus, in this paper, we experimentally investigate performance of PBV-R under various conditions such as a stroke length and an area ratio to find out the optimal parameters of PBV-R and discuss the results by calculations. 

Index Terms— pneumatics, pneumatic booster valves, air power, energy efficiency, energy recovery

Cite: Jongha Lim, Kotaro Tadano, and Toshiharu Kagawa,  "The Impact of Geometric Design on Energy Efficiency of Pneumatic Booster Valves with Energy Recovery," International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research, Vol. 9, No. 5, pp. 665-672, May 2020. DOI: 10.18178/ijmerr.9.5.665-672

Copyright © 2020 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided that the article is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.