Analysis of the Energy Efficiency of a Pneumatic Booster Regulator with Energy Recovery

Abstract

Pneumatic booster regulators (PBR) are in great demand in modern pneumatic systems for their energy-saving abilities. A new booster regulator with energy recovery (VBA-R) was proposed, and its energy efficiency was investigated by introducing the concept of air power. On the basis of quality-alterable gas thermodynamics, an energy efficiency assessment and pressure response model for VBA-R was proposed. First, a model was solved using MATLAB/Simulink software, and an alternative experiment was designed to verify the mathematical model and performance improvement. The results showed that the simulation was consistent with the experiment. We also can conclude that, first of all, the energy efficiency decreases with the increasing of supply pressure and flow-rate consumption; a VBA-R has the highest efficiency when its diameter ratio is closest to 1.3. Finally, a recovery chamber helped to improve the performance of the VBA-R, which included a boost ratio improvement of 15-25% and an efficiency improvement of 5-10% compared with a conventional VBA booster regulator. This research lays the foundation for optimism regarding the proposed booster regulator.

Improving Energy Efficiency of Flexible Pneumatic Systems

“…The state of art in the field of energy efficiency of pneumatic control systems shows that many authors have made efforts to achieve improvements concerning energy efficiency of pneumatic systems in order to reduce costs and reduce energy consumption in different ways, such as the development of new control algorithms and schemes, reducing air leakage, etc. In accordance with what has been previously mentioned, a newly developed booster valve was proposed in [17,18], with the possibility of collecting and reusing compressed air energy in order to reduce the compressed air consumption. Another possible scheme, containing a fast switching on/off valve, was introduced in [19].…”

Improving power efficiency of pneumatic logistic complex actuators through selection of a rational scheme of their control

“…At present, it is well known (and it was proved) that a polytropic process with a variable polytropic index for describing operation of the pneumatic actuator is the most proper process. Paper [7] draws attention to the fact that irrational use of the increased pressure level leads to the growth of power input. It is suggested that in a necessity, pressure to the consumer should be reduced or, conversely, use of a local device similar to a hydraulic multiplier is advisable if a higher pressure is required.…”

Energy Efficiency of Pneumatic Cylinder Control with Different Levels of Compressed Air Pressure and Clamping Cartridge

“…Al-Dakkan et al [2] presented a method of energy saving in the context of a servo-controlled pneumatic actuator. Yang et al [3,4] proposed a new booster valve with energy recovery for improving the energy efficiency of a pneumatic actuator system. Luciano et al [5] introduced an alternative scheme with a fast switching on/off valve interconnecting the cylinder chambers, for reducing the consumption of compressed air in pneumatic positioning systems with external loads.…”

“…All of the previous papers dealt with the problem of increasing the energy efficiency of pneumatic systems in various ways. Some of them proposed new booster valves [3,4]. Others reused exhaust air from one pneumatic component to the same component [5,[8][9][10]15,16] or another component [6,15].…”