Design Optimization of Dynamically Coupled Actuated Butterfly Valves Subject to a Sudden Contraction

In this effort, we present novel nonlinear modeling of two solenoid actuated butterfly valves subject to a sudden contraction and then develop an optimal configuration in the presence of highly coupled nonlinear dynamics. The valves are used in the so-called smart systems employed in a wide range of applications including bioengineering, medicine, and engineering fields. Typically, thousands of the actuated valves operate together to regulate the amount of flow and also to avoid probable catastrophic disasters which have been observed in practice. We focus on minimizing the amount of energy used in the system as one of the most critical design criteria to yield an efficient operation. We optimize the actuation subsystems interacting with the highly nonlinear flow loads in order to minimize the amount of energy consumed. The contribution of this work is the inclusion of coupled nonlinearities of electromechanical valve systems to optimize the actuation units. Stochastic, heuristic, and gradient based algorithms are utilized in seeking the optimal design of two sets. The results indicate that substantial amount of energy can be saved by an intelligent design that helps select parameters carefully and also uses flow torques to augment the closing efforts.