Camcon Aids Jet Aircraft Noise Reduction with Long Life Digital Valve

17 March 2005 – Camcon Technology, the UK inventor and developer of the Camcon Binary Actuating Technology (BAT), today announced that a pair of its binary valves has completed more than 25 billion operations in laboratory trials, making efficient jet aircraft noise reduction feasible.

Active control for aero-engine noise suppression requires high speed, long life valves capable of frequency and amplitude modulation. Traditional actuator and valve technologies used in the control of liquids and gases typically have a service life of 10 million operations.

The Camcon digital valve offers a 2,500 times improvement on that figure, an essential requirement for an efficient jet aircraft noise reduction system.

In experiments at Berlin Technical University, Camcon® Binary Actuation Technology (BAT) valves have already been shown to reduce the front-end high-pitched noise emitted by jet engine blades by more than 20 decibels at critical frequencies.

"To suppress noise for 20 per cent of flight operations supporting a system life of 20,000 hours at an average frequency of 1,000Hz would require a valve life of at least 15 billion cycles" said Bryn Jones, aerospace industry consultant. "By demonstrating a valve life of more than 25 billion cycles, as well as with frequency and amplitude modulation, Camcon offers promise of a practical means to enable active noise control at source."

"The lifetime performance of Camcon binary valves has been proved once again. We are delighted with the results and we are working closely with companies involved in jet noise reduction to implement our technology in prototype products," said Wladyslaw Wygnanski, inventor of the Camcon Binary Actuator and Managing Director of Camcon Technology Limited.
Two binary valves have been undergoing tests at Camcon's research and development facility in Cambridge since January 2002, with each actuator driven at 526 changeovers per second, equivalent to more than 30,000 times per minute. To date neither actuator shows any signs of wear.

- ends -

About Camcon Binary Actuating Technology (BAT)
The Camcon binary actuator uses a patented design combining both permanent and electro-magnets, which minimises stress to the armature - the moving component within a digital actuator or valve that is typically the first component to fail. The armature accelerates on the application of an electrical pulse to modify the magnetic field created by a pair of permanent magnets and then decelerates as it moves through an opposing magnetic field.

About Camcon
Based in Cambridge, UK, Camcon Technology is a small fast growing company focused on the research and development of the Camcon Binary Actuator. Camcon Binary Actuating Technology has been 15 years in development and is the invention of Camcon founder Wladyslaw Wygnanski.
The high-speed, low energy consumption, low heat dissipation and long life characteristics of the Camcon Binary Actuator mean that it has applications in a whole new range of areas, as well as being a replacement for existing actuator and valve technologies.

Camcon Technology licenses its technology to customers, usually by field-of-use. The company develops pre-production prototypes for customers on a consultancy basis and then hands over designs either to its customers to manufacture in volume, or to a manufacturing partner.
For further information: www.camcontec.com.

Camcon is funded by ACUS Management Partners, an active management venture capitalist that specialises in funding early stage technology companies. For further information: www.acus.co.uk.