JP2003232453A - Spool valve, and method for manufacturing the same - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a spool valve, and a method for manufacturing the same, capable of achieving excellent abrasion resistance, and which can be easily manufactured in a short time. <P>SOLUTION: This spool valve 1 comprises a shaft part 11, and a land part 12 of a larger diameter than the shaft part 11. It is used as incorporated in a hydraulic passage 21 of a hydraulic control device. The spool valve 1 is composed in such a way that an oil way 22 opened in the hydraulic passage 21 is opened and closed as the land part 12 is slid to the hydraulic passage 21. The spool valve 1 comprises aluminum alloy, and an Ni plated film is formed on an outer circumferential surface 121 of the land part 12, at least, applying an electroless plating method. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2003,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a spool valve having a shaft portion and a land portion having a diameter larger than that of the shaft portion, and being incorporated in a hydraulic passage to open and close an oil passage, and a manufacturing method thereof.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a hydraulic control device, a spool valve incorporated in a hydraulic path for opening and closing an oil path is used. The spool valve has a shaft portion and a land portion having a diameter larger than that of the shaft portion, and is used by being arranged in a cylinder hole formed in a valve body of an automatic transmission of an automobile, for example. In this case, the spool valve slides on the cylinder hole, and the land portion opens and closes the oil passage provided in the cylinder hole.

By the way, in recent years, in particular, it has been desired to reduce the weight of parts constituting an automobile, and the spool valve is also required to be reduced in weight. Therefore, the material of the spool valve tends to shift from the conventional steel to aluminum alloy. The aluminum alloy spool valve generally has low wear resistance. Therefore, the surface of the spool valve is anodized (for example, hard alumite) to form an anodized film having excellent wear resistance.

[0004]

However, the anodizing treatment is a chemical conversion treatment using electrolysis, and the surface roughness of the spool valve deteriorates after the anodizing treatment. The deterioration of the surface roughness may hinder the smooth sliding of the spool valve. Therefore, the surface of the spool valve that has been subjected to the above-mentioned anodizing treatment is subjected to polishing treatment. That is, the polishing process must be performed after the anodizing process, which makes it difficult to shorten the time for manufacturing the spool valve.

The present invention has been made in view of the above conventional problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a spool valve which is excellent in wear resistance and can be easily manufactured in a short time, and a manufacturing method thereof. .

[0006]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, a shaft portion and a land portion having a diameter larger than that of the shaft portion are incorporated, and the land portion is slid relative to the hydraulic passage while being incorporated in the hydraulic passage. Thus, in the spool valve for opening and closing the oil passage in the hydraulic path, the spool valve is made of aluminum alloy or an aluminum composite material in which hard ceramic particles are added to aluminum alloy, and at least the outer peripheral surface of the land portion has no A spool valve having a plating film formed by using an electrolytic plating method (claim 1).

The spool valve of the present invention is made of an aluminum alloy or an aluminum composite material in which hard ceramic particles are added to an aluminum alloy. Therefore, the weight of the spool valve can be reduced. Further, the spool valve has a plating film formed by an electroless plating method on at least the outer peripheral surface of the land portion that slides on the hydraulic path. The spool valve can slide on the hydraulic path via the plating film formed on the land. Therefore, during this sliding, seizure or the like is unlikely to occur on the land portion of the spool valve, and the spool valve has excellent wear resistance.

According to the electroless plating method, the plating film is formed on the surface of the spool valve in a so-called electroless manner. Therefore, the surface roughness of the spool valve hardly deteriorates after forming this plating film. Therefore, after forming the plating film, there is no need to perform a polishing process as in the conventional case, and the spool valve can be easily manufactured in a relatively short time.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a shaft portion and a land portion having a diameter larger than that of the shaft portion. The land portion is incorporated in the hydraulic path and the land portion is slid with respect to the hydraulic path. A method for manufacturing a spool valve for opening and closing an oil passage in a hydraulic path, comprising: A spool valve manufacturing method comprising: a polishing step of polishing an outer peripheral surface; and a plating step of forming a plating film on at least the land portion by an electroless plating method after the polishing. 5).

The present invention is a method of manufacturing a spool valve having the above-mentioned excellent effects. That is, in the present invention, first, in the polishing step, at least the outer peripheral surface of the land portion of the material to be the spool valve is polished. Then, by this polishing, the land portion is made to have a surface roughness suitable for forming the plating film.

Next, in the plating step, the plating film is formed on at least the land portion. At this time,
Since the plating film is formed by the electroless plating method, the surface roughness of the land portion after the plating film is formed is hardly deteriorated as compared with the surface roughness of the land portion before the plating film is formed. . Therefore, it is not necessary to perform the polishing process again after forming the plating film as in the conventional case. Therefore, the spool valve can be easily manufactured in a short time.

Further, as described above, in the present invention,
The surface roughness of the land portion formed in the polishing step is
It is reflected in the surface roughness of the land after the plating film is formed in the plating step. Therefore, in the present invention, the final surface roughness of the land after the plating film is formed in the plating step is controlled by controlling the surface roughness of the land that has been polished in the polishing step. be able to. Therefore, it is easy to control the process of manufacturing the spool valve.

[0013]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION The preferred embodiments of the present invention described above will be described. In the first and second aspects of the invention, the spool valve can be used to control the operation of hydraulic pressure in an automatic transmission of an automobile. In this case, since the spool valve is lightweight, it is possible to contribute to weight reduction of the entire vehicle. Besides, the spool valve can be used by being provided in the hydraulic path of various hydraulic devices.

The aluminum alloy may be, for example, A6262, A6061, A2 according to JIS standard.
011, A4032, A4043 and the like can be used. Further, as the aluminum composite material, Al ₂ O ₃ (aluminum oxide), A
It can be generated by adding ceramics hard particles such as 1N (aluminum nitride) and SiC (silicon carbide).

Further, the plating film is preferably a Ni plating film containing Ni as a main component (claims 2 and 6).
In this case, it is easy to form the above-mentioned plated film and it is possible to form a plated film having excellent wear resistance.

Further, the Ni plating film contains P (phosphorus).
Alternatively, it is preferable that at least one of B (boron) is contained (claims 3 and 7). In this case, the wear resistance of the plating film can be further improved.

Further, the Ni plating film preferably has a Vickers hardness Hv of 400 or more (claim 4).
8). In this case, ensure the hardness of the Ni plating film,
The wear resistance of the spool valve can be further improved. Also, the Vickers hardness Hv of the Ni plating film is
Is more preferably 650 or more. in this case,
Although the spool valve is made of the aluminum alloy or the aluminum composite material, it can exhibit the same surface hardness as the steel spool valve.
Therefore, it is possible to make it difficult for scratches and the like to enter the surface of the spool valve during transportation or assembly.

[0018]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. (Embodiment 1) As shown in FIG. 1, a spool valve 1 of this embodiment has a shaft portion 11 and a land portion 1 having a diameter larger than that of the shaft portion 11.
2 and are used by being incorporated in the hydraulic path 21 of the hydraulic control device. And the spool valve 1
By sliding the land portion 12 with respect to the hydraulic passage 21, the oil passage 22 in the hydraulic passage 21 is moved.
It is configured to open and close. The spool valve 1 is made of an aluminum alloy A6262-T6 material according to the JIS standard. The spool valve 1 has at least the outer peripheral surface 12 of the land portion 12.
1 has a plating film formed by using an electroless plating method.

This will be described in detail below. In this example, the plating film is a Ni plating film containing Ni as a main component. Specifically, this Ni plating film is Ni: 98%, P: 1
˜2%, B: 1% or less, and the balance Fe. The hardness of the Ni plating film formed by this nickel material is Vickers hardness H.
It was 700 in v.

As shown in FIG. 1, in this embodiment, the hydraulic control device is a valve body 2 used in an automatic transmission of an automobile, and the spool valve 1 controls the hydraulic operation in the automatic transmission. Used for. That is, the spool valve 1 is used by being arranged in the cylinder hole 21 as the hydraulic path 21 formed in the valve body 2 of the automatic transmission.

The spool valve 1 slides by bringing the land portion 12 into contact with the sliding surface 211 which is the inner peripheral surface of the cylinder hole 21. The cylinder hole 21 is provided with an oil passage 221 on the inlet side and an oil passage 222 on the outlet side as the oil passages 22. The oil passage 221 on the inlet side communicates with an oil pump (not shown), and the oil passage 222 on the outlet side communicates with a solenoid valve or a governor valve that operates hydraulic pressure in the automatic transmission.

As shown in FIG. 1, the spool valve 1
Is in one position, at least one of the oil passage 221 on the inlet side or the oil passage 222 on the outlet side is closed by the outer peripheral surface 121 of the land portion 12 and the sliding surface 211 of the cylinder hole 21. (In this example, the oil passage 221 on the inlet side is closed.). As a result, the communication between the oil passage 221 on the inlet side and the oil passage 222 on the outlet side is closed by the land portion 12.

Then, as shown in FIG. 2, when the spool valve 1 is operated, the outer peripheral surface 121 of the land portion 12 slides on the sliding surface 211 of the cylinder hole 21, and the two The oil passage 22 is opened (in this example, the oil passage 221 on the inlet side is opened). As a result, the two oil passages 22 communicate with each other in the cylinder hole 21. At this time, the oil flows from the inlet side to the outlet side of the oil passage 22, and the hydraulic pressure operation in the automatic transmission is performed. In this way, the spool valve 1 can control the opening and closing of the oil passage 22 provided in the cylinder hole 21.

Hereinafter, a method of manufacturing the spool valve 1 and its effects will be described. First, as a processing step, a material made of aluminum alloy is prepared. Then, this material is cut to form the shaft portion 11 and the land portion 12 having a diameter larger than that of the shaft portion 11. In addition, instead of the above-mentioned cutting work, various working methods such as cold forging, die casting or sintering can be used.

Then, as a polishing step, at least the outer peripheral surface 121 of the land portion 12 of the material having the shaft portion 11 and the land portion 12 is polished. Then, by this polishing, the land portion 12 is made to have a surface roughness suitable for forming the Ni plating film. Next, in the plating step, the Ni plating film is formed on at least the land portion 12 by using an electroless plating method.

As the electroless plating method, a method equivalent to JIS H8645 of JIS standard is used. In particular,
The material made of the aluminum alloy was immersed in an electroless plating bath at about 90 ° C. for about 15 minutes to form the Ni plating film. Also, the above electroless plating bath is Top Nicolon L
A bath was constructed using PH (Okuno Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.). More specifically, the initial make-up and the water of the top two colon LPH and 0.075m ³ of ^{0.025m 3 (25L) (75L)} ,
A 0.1 m ³ (100 L) electroless plating bath was constructed.
In addition, the pH of the electroless plating bath can be adjusted to 6.3 with a pH adjuster.
Adjusted to ~ 6.7.

Since the spool valve 1 manufactured as described above is made of aluminum alloy, it is lightweight and can contribute to weight reduction of an automobile using the valve body 2 in the above automatic transmission. Further, as described above, the spool valve 1 has the Ni plating film formed by the electroless plating method on at least the outer peripheral surface 121 of the land portion 12 that slides on the cylinder hole 21. . The spool valve 1 can be slid with respect to the cylinder hole 21 via the Ni plating film formed on the land portion 12. Therefore, seizure or the like is unlikely to occur on the land portion 12 of the spool valve 1 during this sliding, and the spool valve 1 has excellent wear resistance.

According to the electroless plating method, the Ni plating film is formed on the surface of the spool valve 1 in a so-called electroless manner. Therefore, the surface roughness of the spool valve 1 after forming this Ni plating film is hardly deteriorated as compared with the surface roughness of the land portion 12 before forming the Ni plating film. Therefore, after the Ni plating film is formed, it is not necessary to further perform a polishing process as in the conventional case, and the spool valve 1 can be manufactured in a short time.

As described above, in this example, the surface roughness of the land portion 12 formed in the polishing step is reflected on the surface roughness of the land portion 12 after the Ni plating film is formed in the plating step. To be done. Therefore, in this example, by controlling the surface roughness of the land portion 12 polished in the polishing step, the land portion 12 after the Ni plating film is formed in the plating step is controlled.
The final surface roughness of can be controlled. Therefore,
It is easy to manage the process of manufacturing the spool valve 1.

In this example, the spool valve 1 having the land portions 12 formed at two locations has been described. On the other hand, the spool valve 1 in which the land portions 12 are formed at three or four places can also exhibit the same operational effect.

(Embodiment 2) In this embodiment, a test piece of the spool valve 1 having the above Ni plating film (invention product) and a test piece of a spool valve having a conventional anodized film (comparative product) were used. The surface roughness and the surface hardness were measured and compared. The material of the test piece was the same as in Example 1 for both the invention product and the comparative product.
The aluminum alloy shown in. Further, each of the test pieces has a cylindrical shape so that it can be used in Example 3 described later.

That is, first, the above-mentioned invention product and comparative product were polished with the aim of setting the ten-point average roughness Rz as the surface roughness to 1.0 (μm). Then, the ten-point average roughness Rz after polishing was measured and found to be 0.94 (μm) (see FIG. 3). In addition, the Vickers hardness Hv as the surface hardness after the polishing
Was 110.

After that, both the above-mentioned invention product and the comparative product were immersed in a cleaning solution for about 15 minutes and then thoroughly washed with water to clean their surfaces. At this time, the cleaning liquid was an aqueous solution at 60 ° C. containing 2 wt% of the alkaline degreasing agent Fine Cleaner 301 (manufactured by Nippon Parkerizing). And about the said invention product, the Ni plating film was formed in the surface of the said test piece. On the other hand, for the above comparative product, an anodized film was formed on the surface of the above test piece by a hard alumite treatment.

Table 1 shows the results obtained by measuring the ten-point average roughness Rz and the Vickers hardness Hv of the invention product after the formation of the Ni plating film and the comparative product after the formation of the anodized film. From the table, Rz is 1.01 μm for the invention products.
(See FIG. 4), Hv was 700, and for the comparative product, Rz was 2.58 μm (see FIG. 5) and Hv was 350.

[0035]

[Table 1]

From these facts, it is understood that the ten-point average roughness Rz of the above-mentioned invention product hardly changes before and after the formation of the Ni plating film. Therefore, in the case of the invention product, the ten-point average roughness Rz after the polishing performed before the Ni plating film formation is reflected in the ten-point average roughness Rz after the Ni plating film formation.

On the other hand, in the comparative product, the ten-point average roughness Rz is significantly deteriorated after forming the anodic oxide film (about 2.5 times rougher), and this anodic oxide film is formed. It can be seen that further polishing is required after formation. Therefore, it can be seen that the above-mentioned invention product, that is, the spool valve 1 having the Ni plating film formed thereon, can be manufactured in a short time because the manufacturing process is easily controlled.

Regarding the Vickers hardness Hv,
The invention product is about twice as hard as the comparative product. From this, it is understood that the invention product, that is, the spool valve 1 having the Ni plating film formed thereon is also excellent in surface hardness that affects wear resistance.

(Example 3) In this example, the invention product and the comparative product manufactured in the above Example 2 were tested for wear resistance. That is, as shown in FIG. 6, as a test for confirming the wear resistance, each of the test pieces 31 of the invention product and the comparative product was subjected to a desired load on a flat plate piece 32 made of an aluminum alloy. It was made to slide and the sliding resistance at this time was measured.

Specifically, first, each of the above test pieces 3
Lubricating oil was applied to 1 and the flat plate piece 32 and lightly wiped to form a state in which a small amount of lubricating oil was interposed therebetween. The lubricating oil was an automatic fluid D-II (made by Toyota).

Then, each of the test pieces 31 is placed on the flat plate piece 32 with one side surface 301 thereof aligned, and each test piece 31 is placed at 500 rpm.
I rotated it. In addition, a load is applied to each of the test pieces 31 from above, and the torque generated during the rotation is measured.
The friction coefficient as the sliding resistance between 1 and the flat plate piece 32 was calculated. The load was increased by 200 N every 5 minutes, and when the friction coefficient was 0.3 or more, seizure occurred between the test piece 31 and the flat plate piece 32. The above load was read as a seizure load. The sliding area where the test piece 31 slides on the flat plate piece 32 was about 2 cm ² .

As a result of the above measurement, the seizure load was the same 1200 N for both the invention product and the comparative product.
Met. From this, it is understood that the above-described invention product, that is, the spool valve 1 having the Ni-plated film formed is as excellent as the comparative product with respect to the seizure load that affects the wear resistance.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram showing a spool valve with an oil passage closed according to a first embodiment.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing a spool valve in a state in which an oil passage is opened according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a graph showing ten-point average roughness Rz of a test piece after polishing in Example 2.

FIG. 4 is a ten-point average roughness Rz of the invention product in Example 2.
The graph showing.

5 is a ten-point average roughness Rz of a comparative product in Example 2. FIG.
The graph showing.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing a test for confirming wear resistance in Example 3.

[Explanation of symbols]

1. ． ． Spool valve, 11. ． ． Shaft, 12. ． ． Land part, 121. ． ． Outer surface, 2. ． ． Valve body, 21. ． ． Hydraulic path (cylinder hole), 22. ． ． Oil passage,

Continued front page    F-term (reference) 3H053 AA22 AA26 BA04 BA19 BA38                       DA11                 4K022 AA02 AA04 AA48 BA14 DA01                       DB02 DB03

Claims (8)

[Claims] Claim: What is claimed is: 1. An oil having a shaft portion and a land portion having a diameter larger than that of the shaft portion, which is incorporated into the hydraulic path and slides the land portion with respect to the hydraulic path, thereby providing oil in the hydraulic path. In a spool valve for opening and closing a passage, the spool valve is made of an aluminum alloy or an aluminum composite material containing ceramic hard particles added to an aluminum alloy, and at least the outer peripheral surface of the land portion is
A spool valve having a plating film formed by using an electroless plating method. 2. The plating film according to claim 1, wherein the plating film is N
A spool valve, which is a Ni-plated film mainly composed of i. 3. The spool valve according to claim 2, wherein the Ni plating film contains at least one of P and B. 4. The spool valve according to claim 2 or 3, wherein the Ni plating film has a Vickers hardness Hv of 400 or more. 5. An oil in the hydraulic path is provided by having a shaft portion and a land portion having a diameter larger than that of the shaft portion, and incorporating the land portion in the hydraulic passage and sliding the land portion with respect to the hydraulic passage. In a method of manufacturing a spool valve for opening and closing a passage, at least an outer peripheral surface of the land portion of a material made of an aluminum alloy or an aluminum composite material obtained by adding ceramics hard particles to an aluminum alloy and having the shaft portion and the land portion is polished. And a plating step of forming a plating film on at least the land portion by an electroless plating method after the polishing. 6. The plating film according to claim 5, wherein the plating film is N
A method for manufacturing a spool valve, which is a Ni plating film mainly composed of i. 7. The method of manufacturing a spool valve according to claim 6, wherein the Ni plating film contains at least one of P and B. 8. The method for manufacturing a spool valve according to claim 6, wherein the Ni plating film has a Vickers hardness Hv of 400 or more.