Modeling and experimental validation of a reed check valve for hydraulic applications

Reed valves are a type of check valve commonly found in a wide range of applications including air compressors, internal combustion engines, and even the human heart. While reed valves have been studied extensively in these applications, published research on the modeling and application of reed valves in hydraulic systems is severely lacking. Because the spring and mass components of a reed valve are contained in a single element, it is light and compact compared to traditional disc, poppet, or ball style check valves. These advantages make reed valves promising for use in high frequency applications such as piston pumps, switch-mode hydraulics, and digital hydraulics. Furthermore, the small size and fast response of reed valves provide an opportunity to design pumps capable of operating at higher speeds and with lower dead volumes, thus increasing efficiency and power density. In this paper, a modeling technique for reed valves is presented and validated in a hydraulic piston pump test bed. Excellent agreement between modeled and experimentally measured reed valve opening is demonstrated. Across the range of experimental conditions, the model predicts the pump delivery with an error typically less than 1% with a maximum error of 2.2%.