EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCHES REGARDING TESTING LIFETIME AND MONITORING THE BEHAVIOUR OF THE VARIABLE VALVE TIMING SYSTEM ELECTROVALVES ON A TEST BENCH

Abstract

The article presents the determination of the maximum number of electrovalve switchings until malfunction (valve lifetime), using different contamination oil conditions (size and type of particles) in case of a test bench used for studying contaminantion behaviour of some components of the vehicle engine variable valve timing system. An analysis of the hauling time estimation in case of vehicles equiped with this type of electrohydraulic valves until this device fail due to contamination with particles from the oil was also presented in this paper. It was also created a database with tested electrovalves. During the paper we present two monitoring types on the test-bench, developed in case of the electrovalves, and a determination of the variation law of the diagnostics parameter which describes behaviour of the electrovalve. These test-bench researches accomplished, we consider useful for electrohydraulic valves manufacturers, vehicle engines manufacturers in order to improve their products and also for the maintenance service to assure a better quality of the process. Consequently the researches made opens a “bridge” for future research directions, like different other type of monitoring systems or testing electrovalves using other conditions as could be other particles, materials, sizes, or contamination classes. Another future research direction could be testing other types of electrohydraulic valves using this test bench, with minimum costs (only with valve tested block switching). The developping of some monitoring on-board diagnostics systems procedure for the valves, could also in future be developped starting from this point of researches.