Improving Performance of a Switched Inertance Buck Converter Via Positioning of Reservoir Flow Valve

A typical switched inertance buck converter includes digital valves controlling the flow of fluid to the load from the pressure supply and also from the reservoir. These valves are typically located at the same position, often packaged in the form of a single three-way valve, but also sometimes in the form of a two-way high-pressure supply valve and check valve from tank. This results in the situation where attempts to increase flow boosting performance by exploiting reflected pressure waves to draw additional fluid from tank will also tend to draw additional fluid through the valve from the high-pressure supply, causing increased energy loss at the valve. This paper presents a strategy that avoids this tradeoff by locating the tank flow valve along the length of the inertance tube such that the timing of pressure waves arriving at the tank valve can be optimized separately from those arriving at the high-pressure supply valve. A simulation study is presented, in which valve placement and inertance tube resonance are optimized for flow gain or energy efficiency, with results in both cases better than a conventional system with colocated valves. Two strategies for avoiding cavitation are also presented.