Project
Overview
The Commercial Airplane Group of The Boeing
Company is the leading supplier of commercial aircrafts
flown throughout the world. At its testing facility
near Boeing Field in South Seattle, servovalves are
used in a number of testing applications for commercial
aircraft components. A servovalve is a device that uses
a small amount of electrical current (~15 mA) to precisely
control a large amount of hydraulic power (~100 horsepower).
Because the servovalves control such massive amount
of hydraulic fluid flows, it is vital that they perform
with accuracy and precision. Currently if a servovalve
is suspected of malfunctioning, it is sent to the servovalve
manufacturer for testing and calibration, resulting
in possible unwanted downtime for that specific testing
application. An in-house testing system and procedure
would reduce such a downtime.
The Boeing Company is seeking a fully
assembled servovalve testing fixture and procedure to
analyze and evaluate the performance of the servovalves
in-house. The required measurements are the proportional
no-load flow rate and blocked port pressure from the
servovalve as a function of the input current. A servovalve
must also produce a specific output flow magnitude corresponding
to a correct current frequency. Both control and data
acquisition for the calibration tests should be fully
computerized.
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