The overflow rate of poppet relief valve is established, the dynamics characteristics of poppet relief valve which contains transient flow force and steady flow force is established. Based on this point, the stability conditions of poppet relief valve system are derived using Routh-Hurmitz method. The effect of the design parameters of relief valve on the dynamic characteristics of poppet valve system is analyzed. Using sensitivity analysis, the effects of parameters of the most significant is obtained, that is diameter D of liquid flow cylinder fluid. The results showed that, the established model can largely capture the dynamic characteristics of the relief valve system, the established stability condition can be used as a favorable basis for the design of valve. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.mech.25.1.22881