Modeling of a pressure reducing valve actuator for automotive applications

Significant research effort has been directed towards developing vehicle systems that reduce the energy consumption of an automobile and because pressure control valves are used as actuators in many control applications for automotive systems, a proper dynamic model is necessary. Starting from equations found in literature, where a single stage pressure reducing valve is modelled, in this paper, the concept of modeling a real three land three way solenoid valve actuator for the clutch system in the automatic transmission is presented. Two simulators for an input-output model and a state-space model were developed and these were validated with data provided from experiments with the real valve actuator on a test bench.