Prospects for the development of pneumatic technology

Oct 10, 2019

The development of the pneumatic industry also tends to protect the environment, improve the performance of products, reduce costs, and at the same time, because of the improvement of performance and cost reduction, it helps to save energy and is conducive to environmental protection. The key is to improve the automation level of the pneumatic industry and make its products More superior, so the development direction of the pneumatic industry is roughly as follows: 1. Integrated integration of machine and electric integration 2. High pressure, miniaturization 3. High efficiency, low cost 4. No oil 5. High life and high reliability 6 Integrated, composite, and multi-functional 7. High-speed automation As pneumatic products are increasingly used in various industries such as bioengineering, medicine, atomic energy, microelectronics, and robotics, many new requirements have been put forward accordingly. The development of new materials, casting technology, surface heat treatment, sealing technology, computer technology, sensing technology and many other basic technologies have received more and more attention.

China's pneumatic industry has improved its business management through product structure adjustment. Since the late 1990s, it has maintained a good economic performance and production has grown steadily and continuously. Because it has the advantages of energy saving, pollution-free, high efficiency, low cost, safety and reliability, and simple structure, it is widely used in various machinery and production lines. The expansion of the application of pneumatic technology is a sign of the development of the pneumatic industry. The application of pneumatic components is mainly two aspects: maintenance and matching. In the past, the sales of domestic pneumatic components were used for maintenance. In recent years, the sales share directly for the main supporting products has increased year by year. The application of domestic pneumatic components ranges from tens of millions of metallurgical equipment to chairs of only 1-2 yuan. Railway rudders, machine wheel rail lubrication, train brakes, street cleaning, lifting equipment in special workshops, military command vehicles, etc. all use specially developed domestic pneumatic components. This shows that pneumatic technology has “infiltrated” into all walks of life and is expanding.

1. In combination with electronic technology, a large number of sensors are used, and pneumatic components are intelligent.

The cylinder with switch has been widely used in China, the switch volume will be smaller, the performance is higher, and it can be embedded in the cylinder block; some also have two-color display, which can show the position error and make the system more reliable. Replacing the flow meter, pressure gauge, and automatic control of the flow and pressure of the compressed air can save energy and ensure the normal operation of the device. Pneumatic servo positioning systems have entered the market. The system uses a three-position five-way pneumatic servo valve to compare the predetermined positioning target with the position sensor detection data and implement negative feedback control. When the maximum speed of the cylinder is 2m/s and the stroke is 300mm, the system positioning accuracy is ±0.1mm. A new type of intelligent solenoid valve has been successfully produced in Japan. This valve is equipped with a logic circuit with a sensor, which is a combination of pneumatic components and optoelectronic technology. It can directly accept the signal of the sensor. When the signal meets the specified conditions, it can complete the action by itself without using an external controller to achieve the control purpose. It has been applied to the conveyor belt of the object, which can identify the size of the moving object, so that the large piece can be directly sent down and the small part can be shunted.

2. Smaller size, lighter weight and lower power consumption.

In the manufacturing industry of electronic components and pharmaceuticals, the size of the workpiece is limited, which is bound to limit the size of the pneumatic component. Miniaturization and light weight are the first development directions of pneumatic components. An ultra-small solenoid valve with a thumb size and an effective cross-sectional area of 0.2 mm2 has been developed abroad. It is more desirable to develop components with small outlines and large flow rates. For this reason, the flow rate of the valve of the same size has been increased by 2 to 3.3 times. There is a series of small solenoid valves with a valve body width of only 10mm, an effective area of up to 5mm2, a width of 15mm, and an effective area of up to 10mm2. The power consumption of foreign solenoid valves has reached 0.5W, and will be further reduced to accommodate the integration with microelectronics.

3. The positioning accuracy of the actuator increases the rigidity and the piston rod does not rotate, which is more convenient to use.

In order to improve the positioning accuracy of the cylinder, cylinder applications with brake mechanisms and servo systems are becoming more and more popular. A cylinder with a servo system can achieve a positioning accuracy of ±0.1 mm even if the supply pressure and the negative load change. At international exhibitions, there are many cylinders of various shaped cross-section cylinders and piston rods.

4. Higher safety and reliability

From the international standards of pneumatic technology in recent years, the standard not only proposes interchangeability requirements, but also emphasizes safety. The pressure of the pressure test of the pipe joint and the gas source treatment casing is increased to 4 to 5 times the use pressure, and the withstand voltage time is increased to 5 to 15 minutes, and the test is also performed at high and low temperatures. If these international standards are implemented, domestic cylinders, end caps, gas source processing castings and pipe joints are difficult to meet the standard requirements. In addition to the pressure test, there are some provisions on the structure. For example, the outer cover of the transparent shell for air source treatment is required to be metal shield.

5. Development towards high speed, high frequency, high response and long life

In order to improve the production efficiency of production equipment, it is imperative to increase the speed of the actuators. At present, the working speed of cylinders in China is generally below 0.5m/s. According to Japanese experts, most cylinders will increase their working speed to 1~2m/s after five years, and some require 5m/s. The improvement of the working speed of the cylinder not only requires the quality of the cylinder to be improved, but also the structure should be improved accordingly, for example, a hydraulic shock absorber is required to increase the cushioning effect. The response time of the solenoid valve will be less than 10ms and the life will be increased to more than 50 million times. In the United States, there is a gap-sealed valve. Since the spool is suspended in the valve body, it does not touch each other, and the life is up to 200 million times without lubrication.

6. There are many cylinders of various profiled cylinders and piston rods.

Since this type of cylinder does not rotate when the piston rod is applied, it can maintain a certain precision without additional guides when applied to the main unit. In addition, a number of cylinder and cylinder slide assemblies with various guide mechanisms have been developed, such as cylinders with two guide rods, double piston rod double cylinder cylinders, etc. The shape of the cylinder tube is not limited to a circular shape, but a square shape, a square shape or the like. The guide groove, the sensor and the mounting groove of the switch are opened on the profile, so that the user can install and use more conveniently. Multi-functional, composite. In order to facilitate users, to adapt to the needs of the market, a variety of small pneumatic systems with multiple pneumatic components combined with control devices have been developed. For components used to move small items, the two cylinders with the guide are combined by the X-axis and the Z-axis. The assembly can handle 3kg heavy objects, equipped with solenoid valve and program controller. It has compact structure, small space and adjustable stroke. Another example is an upper and lower material module, which has seven different functional module forms, which can complete the upper and lower material operations on the precision assembly line, and can arbitrarily combine different modules according to the operation content. Still another type of robot is a combination of a oscillating cylinder and a collet having a small outer shape and capable of changing the swing angle, and a plurality of types of collets are available at the chuck portion.