ABSTRACT
Until recently the sizing of pneumatic components, such as directional control valves, filters, and regulators, has been along the lines of convenience rather than efficiency. With the escalating 126cost of energy circuit designers involved in sizing pneumatic components have found it necessary to give up the practice of rule-of-thumb convenience and are designing more efficient circuits and selecting efficient components to use in those circuits. Many factors influence the “best” circuit design, including component cost, ease of maintenance, space available for mounting components, availability of parts, energy cost, and so forth. The best circuit design or system is in reality a compromise between all these factors and more. In an effort to obtain the best compromise in the area of pneumatic directional control valve sizing, a method for sizing a value for a given set of conditions has been developed and has gained wide acceptance. In this method the directional control valve is sized by utilizing its flow coefficient.
