Analysis of Regeneration Control Valves

The principle of cylinder regeneration is relatively simple and well known. Any fluid power textbook has a small section where mention is made of a special connection of ports in differential cylinders, which changes the speed and force characteristics and may be occasionally used to solve design and application problems (e.g. to reduce the length of a working cycle or the size of a pump). On the other side, some valve manufacturers offer the so-called regeneration valves, which change the cylinder connections automatically, and switch regeneration on and off. The aim of this paper is to relate each other these two inputs by investigating the special features of regeneration in general, and comparing some commercial valves. Two automatic switching principles are introduced, and followed by some experimental results.