Experimental validation of the lifetime performance of a proportional 4/3 hydraulic valve operating in water

One of the alternative hydraulic fluid is water, which is environmentally acceptable, low-cost and non-flammable. We have designed a new hydraulic test rig and a new water proportional control valve to investigate the tribological and hydraulic behaviour of such water-based systems under pressures of up to 16 MPa and flows of up to 30 lpm. In this work, we present the lifetime performance of all-stainless-steel valve with distilled water being used as the hydraulic fluid. The results show that the water-based valve can operate for more than 10 million cycles under industrial relevant conditions if the water cleanness is appropriately maintained.