Conceptual Design of a Hydraulic Valve Train System

Variable valve train systems have been brought into focus during recent years as a means to decrease fuel consumption in tomorrow's combustion engines. In this paper an integrated approach, called simulation driven experiments, is utilised in order to aid the development of such highly dynamic systems. Through the use of systematic design methodology, a number of feasible concepts are developed. Critical components are subsequently identified using simulation. In this approach, component behaviour is simulated and validated by measurements on prototype components. These models are unified with complete system models of hydraulically actuated valve trains. In the case of the valve trains systems studied here component models could be validated using comparably simple test set-ups. These models enable the determination of non-critical design parameters in an optimal sense. This results in a number of optimised concepts facilitating an impartial functional concept selection.