Design and prototyping of an optimized limited motion indirect drive actuator for automotive application

The present work proposes an optimal design and a prototype of a limited stroke actuator dedicated to the Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) system of an internal combustion engine. The actuator is composed by a brushed DC machine with spur gear set and is modelized and optimized under dynamic constraints with a Genetic Algorithm. Actuator performances is specified for a 150ms time response, a 0.363N.m minimal torque on an angular range from 0 to 80° at 9V supply voltage and 130°C temperature conditions. After an optimal design, a finite element method (FEM) with Flux-2D of Cedrat^® is used to check the actuator performances in magnetostatic and transient resolution. Then a prototype is realized in order to verify actuator performance on test bench and a numerical model as Simulink^® is created to simulate the behaviour of the EGR system with its actuator in all conditions. The result show that the system performance comparison between the analytical model and the prototype is correct and that the brushed DC motor with gears actuator seems to be the more suitable technology for this EGR system.