<p>The purpose of the thesis has been to design and simulate different concepts of a secondary controlled swing drive for a wheel excavator. Secondary control is a known technology in the field of hydraulics that offers precise positioning as well as the possibility of energy recuperation. Secondary control is today used in certain industrial applications and is rather unemployed in mobile machinery. An excavator moves high loads in cyclic motions which are ideal conditions for energy recuperating systems. A study of the potential of a secondary controlled swing drive is therefore interesting. The focus has been on testing different circuit architectures and emergency brake concepts.</p><p>The results of the design process have been three types of circuit architectures and two types of hydraulic safety concepts. The results of the simulation have shown that the open and closed circuit architecture have similar energy efficiency. The closed circuit with low pressure accumulator however offers the best controllability. At least 20% energy savings can be achieved by storing thekinetic energy when braking.</p><p>A hydraulic emergency brake must function, independent on the direction of rotation of the excavator during a failure. The first principle recognises the rotation direction and changes the swivel angle of the secondary unit so that a braking torque is created. In the second principle a pressure difference is built up over the secondary unit that always results in a braking torque. Simulationshave shown that the principle with recognition of the speed direction is the most effective safety concept.</p>

The purpose of the thesis has been to design and simulate different concepts of a secondary controlled swing drive for a wheel excavator. Secondary control is a known technology in the field of hydraulics that offers precise positioning as well as the possibility of energy recuperation. Secondary control is today used in certain industrial applications and is rather unemployed in mobile machinery. An excavator moves high loads in cyclic motions which are ideal conditions for energy recuperating systems. A study of the potential of a secondary controlled swing drive is therefore interesting. The focus has been on testing different circuit architectures and emergency brake concepts. The results of the design process have been three types of circuit architectures and two types of hydraulic safety concepts. The results of the simulation have shown that the open and closed circuit architecture have similar energy efficiency. The closed circuit with low pressure accumulator however offers the best controllability. At least 20% energy savings can be achieved by storing thekinetic energy when braking. A hydraulic emergency brake must function, independent on the direction of rotation of the excavator during a failure. The first principle recognises the rotation direction and changes the swivel angle of the secondary unit so that a braking torque is created. In the second principle a pressure difference is built up over the secondary unit that always results in a braking torque. Simulationshave shown that the principle with recognition of the speed direction is the most effective safety concept.

In spite of their high technical maturity, load sensing systems (LS) have system-inherent energy losses that are largely due to the operation of parallel actuators with different loads at the same pressure level. Hereby, the pressure compensators of the system are crucial. So far, excessive hydraulic energy has been throttled at these compensators and been discharged as heat via the oil. The research project “Reduction of System Inherent Pressure Losses at Pressure Compensators of Hydraulic Load Sensing Systems” aims to investigate a novel solution of reducing such energy losses. The pressure of particular sections can be increased by means of a novel hydraulic circuit. Therefore, a recovery unit is connected in series with a hydraulic accumulator via a special valve in the reflux of the actuators. The artificially increased pressure level of the section reduces the amount of hydraulic power to be throttled at the pressure compensators. As long as a section fulfills the switching condition of the valve, pressure losses at the respectiv pressure compensator can be reduced. Thus, via a suitable recovery unit excessive energy can be regenerated and can be directed to other process steps eventually.

This paper is presenting the application of Power Regenerative Boom(PRB) system to excavator. In order to increase the fuel efficiency of the excavator, potential energy of the front structure is recuperated by the hydraulic hybrid system with electric-hydraulic control, during boom down motion. Charged energy into accumulator is reused after boom down motion, the pressurized oil goes to hydraulic motor. The hydraulic motor is mounted on the engine PTO(Power Take-Off), therefore output torque of the hydraulic motor assists the diesel engine directy, it leads to decrease fuel consumption of diesel engine. After the system design and simulation investigation, the presented system was installed into Doosan’s 38ton excavator, DX380LC-3 model, and the energy saving result was verified by a digging and dumping repetition test. The test result shows that fuel consumption was dramatically decreased by 5.0 L/hr compared to the standard DX380LC-3.

<p>A lot of today’s new developments strive for energy efficiency. This includes the hydraulic side of industry. The Division of Fluid andMechanical Engineering Systems of Linköpings University in collaboration with Volvo Construction Equipment in Eskilstuna has developed a newhydraulic concept when it comes to the control of cylinder loads in a wheel loader. The concept differs from today’s application, where the cylinderload is controlled via a valve, in the way that the load is solely controlled by a pump. To control this system, an electrical feed back of operatorsdemanded signal is needed. These signals have to be correctly interpreted so that valve and the pumps perform the requested operation. The newsystem is going to need a unit that can perform these operations in a way that corresponds to the operating level of today’s hydraulically controlledsystem.The study aims to develop a software platform that solves this. This platform shall, besides performing the operators’ demands, monitor the system.The monitoring of the system is a crucial part because of security issues, but also when analyzing the systems functionality. The implementation ofthis software will be done in a real-time computer with the ability to collect data, interpret it and then control the connected units of the system.Further work that is to be done is an energy consumption study of today’s hydraulic system, and on the basis of this study, theoretically evaluate thenew system.The study has resulted in a great insight of an industrial mechanic machine, this in a level that includes an entire system. The wide range of thistask has brought analysis and development of both hydraul mechanical-, electrical- and software related systems. With an understanding of these,both separate and in interaction with each other, a platform has been designed that shall facilitate the forthcoming development of energy efficienthydraulics, both at VCE and LiTH.</p>

A lot of today’s new developments strive for energy efficiency. This includes the hydraulic side of industry. The Division of Fluid andMechanical Engineering Systems of Linköpings University in collaboration with Volvo Construction Equipment in Eskilstuna has developed a newhydraulic concept when it comes to the control of cylinder loads in a wheel loader. The concept differs from today’s application, where the cylinderload is controlled via a valve, in the way that the load is solely controlled by a pump. To control this system, an electrical feed back of operatorsdemanded signal is needed. These signals have to be correctly interpreted so that valve and the pumps perform the requested operation. The newsystem is going to need a unit that can perform these operations in a way that corresponds to the operating level of today’s hydraulically controlledsystem.The study aims to develop a software platform that solves this. This platform shall, besides performing the operators’ demands, monitor the system.The monitoring of the system is a crucial part because of security issues, but also when analyzing the systems functionality. The implementation ofthis software will be done in a real-time computer with the ability to collect data, interpret it and then control the connected units of the system.Further work that is to be done is an energy consumption study of today’s hydraulic system, and on the basis of this study, theoretically evaluate thenew system.The study has resulted in a great insight of an industrial mechanic machine, this in a level that includes an entire system. The wide range of thistask has brought analysis and development of both hydraul mechanical-, electrical- and software related systems. With an understanding of these,both separate and in interaction with each other, a platform has been designed that shall facilitate the forthcoming development of energy efficienthydraulics, both at VCE and LiTH.

This paper is presenting the application of Power Regenerative Boom(PRB) system to excavator. In order to increase the fuel efficiency of the excavator, potential energy of the front structure is recuperated by the hydraulic hybrid system with electric-hydraulic control, during boom down motion. Charged energy into accumulator is reused after boom down motion, the pressurized oil goes to hydraulic motor. The hydraulic motor is mounted on the engine PTO(Power Take-Off), therefore output torque of the hydraulic motor assists the diesel engine directy, it leads to decrease fuel consumption of diesel engine. After the system design and simulation investigation, the presented system was installed into Doosan’s 38ton excavator, DX380LC-3 model, and the energy saving result was verified by a digging and dumping repetition test. The test result shows that fuel consumption was dramatically decreased by 5.0 L/hr compared to the standard DX380LC-3.

In spite of their high technical maturity, load sensing systems (LS) have system-inherent energy losses that are largely due to the operation of parallel actuators with different loads at the same pressure level. Hereby, the pressure compensators of the system are crucial. So far, excessive hydraulic energy has been throttled at these compensators and been discharged as heat via the oil. The research project “Reduction of System Inherent Pressure Losses at Pressure Compensators of Hydraulic Load Sensing Systems” aims to investigate a novel solution of reducing such energy losses. The pressure of particular sections can be increased by means of a novel hydraulic circuit. Therefore, a recovery unit is connected in series with a hydraulic accumulator via a special valve in the reflux of the actuators. The artificially increased pressure level of the section reduces the amount of hydraulic power to be throttled at the pressure compensators. As long as a section fulfills the switching condition of the valve, pressure losses at the respectiv pressure compensator can be reduced. Thus, via a suitable recovery unit excessive energy can be regenerated and can be directed to other process steps eventually.

In recent years many companies have investigated the use of hybrid technology due to the potential of increasing the driveline’s efficiency and thus reducing fuel consumption. Previous studies show that hydraulic hybrid technology can be favourable to use in construction machinery such as wheel loaders, which often operate in repetitive drive cycles and have high transient power demands. Parallel as well as Series hybrid configurations are both found suitable for wheel loader applications as the hybrid configurations can decrease the dependency on the torque converter. This project has investigated a novel hydraulic hybrid concept which utilizes the wheel loaders auxiliary pump as a supplement to enable both Series and Parallel hybrid operation. Impact of accumulator sizes has also been investigated, for which smaller accumulator sizes resembles a hydrostatic transmission. The hybrid concept has been evaluated by developing a wheel loader simulation model and a control system based on a rule-based energy management strategy. Simulation results indicate improved energy efficiency of up to 18.80 % for the Combined hybrid. Moreover, the accumulator sizes prove to have less impact on the energy efficiency. A hybrid system with decreased accumulator sizes shows improved energy efficiency of up to 16.40 %.

Hydraulic design of a hydrodynamic machine is designed to achieve a high value of energy transformation efficiency. Pumps and turbines have some different typical features in hydraulic design. With the aid of computational fluid dynamics, adjustments of the hydraulic parts of a standard centrifugal pump are assessed with the aim to increase hydraulic efficiency of the pump running as turbine. The impeller, volute casing and added draft tube are discussed.