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Reed valves are a type of
check valve A check valve, non-return valve, reflux valve, retention valve, foot valve, or one-way valve is a valve that normally allows fluid ( liquid or gas) to flow through it in only one direction. Check valves are two-port valves, meaning they have ...
which restrict the flow of fluids to a single direction, opening and closing under changing pressure on each face. Modern versions often consist of flexible metal or
composite materials A composite material (also called a composition material or shortened to composite, which is the common name) is a material which is produced from two or more constituent materials. These constituent materials have notably dissimilar chemical or ...
(
fiberglass Fiberglass ( American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass cl ...
or
carbon fiber Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (American English), carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers (Commonwealth English), carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic (CFRP, CRP, CFRTP), also known as carbon fiber, carbon compo ...
).


Applications


Traditional

Reed valves, normally a
leather Leather is a strong, flexible and durable material obtained from the tanning, or chemical treatment, of animal skins and hides to prevent decay. The most common leathers come from cattle, sheep, goats, equine animals, buffalo, pigs and hog ...
flap covering a hole, are amongst the earliest form of automatic flow control for liquids and gases. They have been used for thousands of years in
water pump A pump is a device that moves fluids (liquids or gases), or sometimes slurries, by mechanical action, typically converted from electrical energy into hydraulic energy. Pumps can be classified into three major groups according to the method they ...
s and for hundreds of years in
bellows A bellows or pair of bellows is a device constructed to furnish a strong blast of air. The simplest type consists of a flexible bag comprising a pair of rigid boards with handles joined by flexible leather sides enclosing an approximately airtig ...
for high-temperature
forge A forge is a type of hearth used for heating metals, or the workplace (smithy) where such a hearth is located. The forge is used by the smith to heat a piece of metal to a temperature at which it becomes easier to shape by forging, or to th ...
s and
musical instruments A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who pl ...
such as church organs and
accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a ree ...
s. In nature, heart valves operate in a somewhat similar fashion.


Pumps

Reed valves are used in some reciprocating compressor designs, and in the pumping element of some musical instruments, large and small.


Two-stroke engines

Reed valves are commonly used in high-performance versions of the
two-stroke A two-stroke (or two-stroke cycle) engine is a type of internal combustion engine that completes a power cycle with two strokes (up and down movements) of the piston during one power cycle, this power cycle being completed in one revolution of ...
engine, where they control the fuel-air mixture admitted to the cylinder. As the piston rises in the cylinder a vacuum is created in the
crankcase In a piston engine, the crankcase is the housing that surrounds the crankshaft. In most modern engines, the crankcase is integrated into the engine block. Two-stroke engines typically use a crankcase-compression design, resulting in the fuel ...
beneath the piston. The resulting pressure differential opens the valve and the fuel-air mixture flows into the crankcase. As the piston descends, it raises the crankcase pressure causing the valve to close to retain the mixture and pressurize it for its eventual transfer through to the
combustion chamber A combustion chamber is part of an internal combustion engine in which the fuel/air mix is burned. For steam engines, the term has also been used for an extension of the firebox which is used to allow a more complete combustion process. Intern ...
. The Swedish motorcycle company Husqvarna produced a two-stroke, 500 cc displacement single cylinder engine with a reed-valve controlled intake, one of the biggest in using this arrangement. Reed valves in two-stroke engines have been placed in the intake ports and also in controlling the intake to the crankshaft space. Composite materials are preferred in racing engines, especially in kart racing, because the stiffness of the petals can be easily tuned and they are relatively safe in failure. High-speed impact takes its toll on all reed valves, with metal valves suffering in
fatigue Fatigue describes a state of tiredness that does not resolve with rest or sleep. In general usage, fatigue is synonymous with extreme tiredness or exhaustion that normally follows prolonged physical or mental activity. When it does not resolve ...
. The physical inertia of reed valves means that they are not as entirely precise in action as rotary valves, a rotary valve engine may run better than a reed valve engine at a small rpm range but the reed valve engine often runs better over a wider rpm range. More sophisticated designs partly address this by creating multi-stage reeds with smaller, more responsive reeds within larger ones that provide more volume later in the cycle. Nevertheless, current technology favors reed valves almost to the exclusion of rotary valves due to their simplicity and low implementation costs and less rotational mass.


Wankel rotary combustion engines

Yanmar Diesel, a Japanese engine maker, was pioneer in introducing reed valves for flow control at intake ports of its small Wankel engines, showing an improvement in torque and performances at low rpm and under partial load of the engine. Toyota discovered the benefits of injecting fresh air into the Wankel RCE exhaust port, and also used a reed valve in prototypes where they tested the SCRE concept ( Stratified Charge Rotary Engine). However, this kind of intake port arrangement never reached the production line for automobile size RCEs. According to David W. Garside, who developed the Norton line of Wankel-powered motorcycles, data from other RCE producers pointed that reed valves do improve performances at low rpm and under partial load, but reduce the high speed power output of the engine, a feature considered inconvenient for motorcycle engines.


Pulse jets

Reed valves are used in the cheap but inefficient pulse jet engine, such as the one used by the Argus As 014 engine in the German V-1 (flying bomb). The valves at the front of the cylindrical engine are opened by the low pressure in the combustion chamber caused by the resonance of the air column in the engine,
fuel A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work. The concept was originally applied solely to those materials capable of releasing chemical energy b ...
is squirted into the combustion chamber and ignited by the hot combustion gases of the previous cycle. Once the charge has expanded and mostly left the engine, pressure inside drops again to below-atmospheric values and the reed valve allows fresh air to enter and the cycle be repeated. Some ram-air pressure due to forward motion helps scavenging and filling the combustion chamber with the new, fresh air charge, thus improving the power of the engine at higher speeds.


Design and modelling

Reed valves are designed considering the pressure gradient and
mass flow Mass flow, also known as mass transfer and bulk flow, is the movement of fluids down a pressure or temperature gradient,Moyes & Schulte (2008). Principles of Animal Physiology. Pearson Benjamin Cummings. San Francisco, California particularly in ...
. The pressure gradient is used to evaluate the valve lift during open condition; the lift and overall component geometry (considering also a pressure loss coefficient) are then used to calculate the mass flow. For high speed applications (compressors and engines) the dynamic response has to be considered. A simple approach consists in the evaluation of first
eigenvalue In linear algebra, an eigenvector () or characteristic vector of a linear transformation is a nonzero vector that changes at most by a scalar factor when that linear transformation is applied to it. The corresponding eigenvalue, often denote ...
that is compared with exciting frequency. Design of reed valves can be refined using simulations. The dynamic of petals can be studied neglecting the coupling between fluid and structure: in this case the evolution of the structural part are simulated using lumped parameters models or FEM models, discharge coefficients at various valve lift are evaluated with experiments or CFD simulations. The study of the complete system needs an integrated Fluid-structure interaction model.


See also

*
Check valve A check valve, non-return valve, reflux valve, retention valve, foot valve, or one-way valve is a valve that normally allows fluid ( liquid or gas) to flow through it in only one direction. Check valves are two-port valves, meaning they have ...
*
Reed switch Reed or Reeds may refer to: Science, technology, biology, and medicine * Reed bird (disambiguation) * Reed pen, writing implement in use since ancient times * Reed (plant), one of several tall, grass-like wetland plants of the order Poales * ...


References


Further reading

* {{Cite book , title=Two Stroke Power Units , last=Irving , first=P E , authorlink=Phil Irving , publisher=George Newnes , location=London , year=1967 , pages= Engine valves Valves Motorcycle engines Two-stroke gasoline engines