Electrical smart valves development for air systems
Two valve prototypes for aerospace application
Liebherr-Aerospace has started in 2019 the development of its new smart electrical valve product family for air systems. The goal of this project is to develop a complete family of electrical valves on smart actuators.
In less than 24 months, the mechanical integration, electronic and software development teams achieved impressively the following milestones:
- Definition of valve family structure and architecture
- Delivery of more than 15 prototypes of smart valves
- A complete functional, environmental and robustness test campaign on both Liebherr sites in France and in Germany.
The product line developed by Liebherr is a set of actuators made for air system valves with a various range of torque and speed capability. A fail-safe electrical actuator is also developed to replace some of the pneumatic functions, which leads to benefits regarding weight, reliability and costs.
Double actuator
Irreversible actuator
Reversible actuator
The main advantage of this new technology is the embedded electronic that allows:
- Digital communication with system or aircraft (IMA) controller and then removal of valve power supply (power electronic) from controllers
- Simplification of aircraft wiring with up to eight actuators on the same digital bus
- Integrated system sensor input that allows data collection as close as possible from the sensors and actuator autonomous regulation
- Trouble-shooting and health monitoring data generation for better in-service customer experience
Thanks to a compact design, the addition of electronic functions had no impact on the overall valves’ weight and size. The optimized integration work between the Liebherr teams in France and Germany was key in the development.
Even if the smart actuators are for the time dedicated for air systems, several other functions in the aircraft can be considered, such as for example fuel or liquid valves actuation.
The next steps of the smart actuator are robustness and maturity testing of the serial design as well as qualification, which is planned in 2022.
Technical key characteristics of the smart actuator:
- Power supply: 28VDC
- Communication: CAN bus
- Contactless technologies
- Integrated sensor input
- Torque: 0 to 20 Nm
- Speed: up to 50°/s
- Irreversible or reversible gearbox options
- Fail-safe function available
- DO254 / 178 – LEVEL B Certified
