Howstuffworks "How Hydraulic Machines Work" Page 1 of 12 I howstutfworks’ ‘Auto Stuff ‘Science Stutt Health Stuff Entertainment Stuf NEW! - Mobil Computer Stutt Electronics Stuff Home Stuff Money Stuff People Stuff Main > Science > Engineering Click here to go back to the normal view! How Hydraulic Machines Work by Marshall Brain From backyard log splitters to the huge machines you see on construction sites, hydraulic equipment is amazing in its strength and agility! On any construction site you see hydraulically-operated machinery in the form of bulldozers, backhoes, shovels, loaders, fork lifts and cranes. Hydraulics ‘operate the control surfaces on any large airplane. You see hydraulics at car service centers lifting the cars so that mechanics can work undemeath them, and many elevators are hydraulically-operated using the same technique. Even the brakes in your car use hydraulics! In this article, you will learn about the basic principles that hydraulic systems use to do their work, and then we'll examine several different pieces of hydraulic machinery found on a construction site. You will be amazed at the power and versatility available with hydraulics! The Basic Idea ‘The basic idea behind any hydraulic system is very simple: Force that is applied at one point is transmitted to another point using an incompressible fluid. The fluid is almost always an oil of some sort. The force is almost always multiplied in the process. The picture below shows the simplest possible hydraulic system: http://science.howstuffworks.conv/hydraulic.htnvprintable 6/9/2006Howstuffworks "How Hydraulic Machines Work" Been Active content removed Page 2 of 12 System ‘A Simple hydraulic system consisting of two pistons and an oil-filled pipe connecting them. Click on the red arrow to see the animation. In this drawing, two pistons (red) fit into two glass cylinders filled with oil (light blue) and connected to one another with an oil-filed pipe. If you apply a downward force to one piston (the left one in this ‘drawing), then the force is transmitted to the second piston through the oil in the pipe. Since oil is incompressible, the efficiency is very good -- almost all of the applied force appears at the second piston. ‘The great thing about hydraulic systems is that the pipe connecting the two cylinders can be any length and shape, allowing it to snake through all sorts of things separating the two pistons. The pipe can also fork, so that one master cylinder can drive more than one slave cylinder if desired. ‘The neat thing about hydraulic systems is that itis very easy to add force multiplication (or division) to the system. if you have read How Air in the System. tis important that a hydraulic system contains no air bubbles. You may have heard about the need to "bleed the air out of the brake lines” of you car. If there is an air bubble in the system, then the force applied to the first piston gets used ‘compressing the air in the bubble rather than moving the second piston, which has a big effect on the efficiency of the system, ‘2 Block and Tackle Works or How Gears Work, then you know that trading force for distance is very ‘common in mechanical systems. In a hydraulic system, all you do is change the size of one piston and cylinder relative to the other, as shown here: http://science.howstuffworks.com/hydraulic.htm/printable 6/9/2006Hypoxia Page | of 3 Home General Info Mountain Flying 1 | Mountain Flying 2 Mountain Flying 3 Flying Articles Airstrips 1 Airstrips 2 Airstrip Junkies Citation X Info Photos Sparky Profile Sales Info Secure Orders | Taildragger Info Hypoxia Sometimes called mountain sickness or altitude sickness, hypoxia is simply a lack of oxygen at the tissue level of the body due to a decreased partial pressure of oxygen in the inspired air. Hypoxia is serious, because it may lead to death. A syndrome, anoxia, meaning literally "without oxygen," is occasionally and erroneously used to denote a deficiency, rather than a lack of oxygen in the tissues. This term is not used for flight below 55,000 feet. Even in acute cases the tissues are never entirely without oxygen. CAUSES Hypoxia may be caused by climbing to an altitude where the body is susceptible to a loss of arterial oxygen below that required by the body. Equipment failure, either a mechanical malfunction or exceeding the capabilities of the design, of a pressurized aircraft or a supplemental oxygen system, can lead to loss of arterial oxygen. TYPES Hypoxia poses a real danger to pilots. There are several types. * Histotoxic Hypoxia — This form results from tissue Poisoning such as from alcohol, narcotics, and certain poisons. The utilization of oxygen by the body tissues is interfered with and the tissues are unable to metabolize the delivered oxygen. + Hypemic Hypoxia — The inability of oxygen to bind to the hemoglobin, as a result of a large blood loss, chronic anemia (decreased hemoglobin content), or the forming of compounds with hemoglobin http://www.mountainflying.com/hypoxia.htm 6/9/2006Howstuffworks "How Hydraulic Machines Work" Page 4 of 12 ‘The major components of a log splitter are shown below: © @log ©Pump @®tydraulic cylinder + ©Engine @valve In cross section, the splitter's important hydraulic parts look like this: wank Handle Pump ‘Spool Valve Hydraulic Cylinder and Piston Active content removed ae High-pressure oil from the pump is shown in light blue, and low-pressure oil returning to the tank is shown in yellow. Click the button to activate the piston! In the figure above you can see how the valve can apply both forward and backward pressure to the piston. The valve used here, by the way, is referred to as a "spool valve" because of its resemblance toa spool from a spool of thread, Let's look at some of the specifics of these components to see how a real hydraulic system works. If you take a trip down to your local building supply center or a place like Northem Tool and Equipment and look at the log splitters, you will find that a typical backyard log splitter has: hitp://science-howstuffworks.com/hydraulic.htm/printable 6/9/2006Howstuffworks "How Hydraulic Machines Work" Page 5 of 12 A S-horsepower gasoline engine ‘A two-stage hydraulic oll pump rated at a maximum of 11 gallons per minute (3 gpm at 2,500 psi) ‘A 4-inch-diameter, 24-inch-long hydraulic cylinder A rated splitting force of 20 tons ‘A3.5-galion hydraulic oll tank ‘A two-stage pump Is an ingenious time-saver. The pump actually contains two pumping sections and an internal pressure-sensing valve that cuts over between the two. One section of the pump generates the maximum gpm flow rate at a lower pressure. It is used, for example, to draw the piston back out of a log after the log has been split. Drawing the piston back into the cylinder takes very litte force and you want it to happen quickly, so you want the highest possible flow rate at low pressure. When pushing the piston into a log, however, you want the highest possible pressure in order to generate the maximum splitting force. The flow rate isn't a big concem, so the pump switches to its “high pressure, lower volume" stage to split the log (One thing you can see is that the advertised "20-ton spliting force” is generous. A 4-inch piston has an area of 12.56 square inches. If the pump generates a maximum pressure of 3,000 pounds per square inch (psi), the total pressure available is 37,680 pounds, or about 2,320 pounds shy of 20 tons. Oh well Another thing you can determine is the cycle time of the piston. To move a 4-inch-diameter piston 24 inches, you need 3.14 * 2?* 24 = 301 cubic inches of oil. A gallon of oil is about 231 cubic inches, so you have to pump almost 1.5 gallons of oil to move the piston 24 inches in one direction. That's a fair amount of oil to pump ~ think about that the next time you watch how quickly a hydraulic backhoe or skid/loader is able to move! In our log splitter, the maximum flow rate is 11 gallons per minute. That ‘means that it will take 10 or so seconds to draw the piston back after the log is split, and it may take almost 30 seconds to push the piston through a tough log (because the flow rate is lower at high pressures). From this discussion you can see that just to fill the cylinder with oil, you need at least 1.5 gallons of hydraulic oil in the system. You can also see that one side of the cylinder has a larger capacity than the other side, because one side has the piston shaft taking up space and the other doesn't. Therefore, big hydraulic machines usually have: ‘+ Large appetites for hydraulic oil (100 gallons is not uncommon if there are six or eight large hydraulic cylinders used to operate the machine.) ‘* Large external reservoirs to hold the difference in the volume of oil displaced by the two sides of any cylinder Now that you understand the basics of a simple hydraulic system, we can look at some really interesting equipment! Large Hydraulic Machines ‘One of the best places to get up close and personal with large hydraulic machines is at a construction site. The thing that is most amazing about these machines is their sheer size. For example, here is a medium-size shoveV/excavator: http://science.howstuffworks.com/hydraulic.htm/printable 6/9/2006"How Hydraulic Machines Work" Page 6 of 12 This machine weighs just over 28 tons, but if you watch the first MPEG video of it you will see that it can be quite swift in its actions. The bucket can scoop out more than a cubic meter of dirt, which weighs in at approximately 1 to 1.5 tons, and move it around with no difficulty at all. Moving a person around is trivial To have this sort of agility, this particular shovel uses an 8.3-liter diesel engine capable of generating 340 horsepower. The engine is connected to a pair of pumps that can generate 140 gallons per minute at 4,500 psi. The hydraulic pistons have 5.5-inch-diameter faces with 4-inch-diameter shafts. In addition, there is one hydraulic motor for each track and a hydraulic motor that can spin the cab and arm at 11 rpm, You can see from the picture that the arm has a pair of pistons working in unison at the "shoulder" -- one at the "elbow" and then one to rotate the bucket. These pistons, along with the two track motors and the rotating motor, are all controlled by two joy sticks and four pedals in the cab: hitp://science.howstuffworks.com/hydraulic.htm/printable 6/9/2006Howstuffworks "How Hydraulic Machines Work" Page 7 of 12 Tracks http://science. howstuffworks.com/hydraulic.htm/printable 6/9/2006Howstuffworks "How Hydraulic Machines Work" Page 8 of 12 The tracks are interesting. If you look at the tracks on any piece of large machinery, you will find that there is a hydraulic motor at one end, a free-spinning toothed wheel at the other, and then a set of rollers for the track to move over, as shown here: Shovel Here are the specifications for the Halla HE280LC shovel: General Weight: 28.2 tons Length: 10.6 meters Width: 3.2 meters Height: 3.3 meters Ground clearance: 0.5 meters hitp://science.howstuffworks.com/hydraulic.htnyprintable 6/9/2006Howstuffworks "How Hydraulic Machines Work" ¢ Bucket width: 1.3 meters Bucket capacity:1.1 cubic meters Working range * Digging depth: 7.5 meters * Vertical digging depth: 5.7 meters * Reach: 10 meters Driving Maximum travel speed: 4.9 km/hr Maximum traction force: 25,143 kaf ‘Swing speed: 11 rpm Maximum digging force: = Bucket: 18 tons = Stick: 14 tons © Ground pressure: 7.7 psi Engine ¢ Cummins 6CT 8.3-C # 8,270 cubic centimeters 340 horsepower at 1,900 rpm Pump * Maximum pressure: 5,000 psi (4,500 psi typical) * Oil flow: 2x270 liters per minute Capacities © Fuel: 530 liters © Engine oil: 22 liters * Hydraulic oll: 320 liters Skid/Loaders ‘Another common piece of equipment at any construction site is the skid/loader (also known Page 9 of 12 ‘generically as a "Bobcat" because that was the name given by the manufacturer that first produced them): Skid/loaders have three pairs of pistons: http://science.howstuffworks.com/hydraulic.htm/printable 6/9/2006Howstuffworks "How Hydraulic Machines Work" Page 10 of 12 ‘The first pair raises and lowers the bucket: ‘+ The second pair rotates the bucket to dump its contents. ‘+ The third pair splits the bucket so you can use ito grab and pick up things (such as logs): There are also hydraulic motors on the four wheels. if you watch the MPEG video you will be able to see these pistons and motors in action. Dump Trucks A dump truck isn't much more complicated than the log splitter we saw previously. Dump trucks typically have one cylinder or a pair of cylinders that lift the bed, The only unique thing about these cylinders is that they often telescope, giving them a very long range of motion. hitp://science howstuffworks.com/hydraulic.htm/printable 6/9/2006Howstuffworks "How Hydraulic Machines Work" Page 11 of 12 Check out the MPEG videos on the next page to watch some large hydraulic machines in action! MPEG Videos These short videos show you three different pieces of hydraulic equipment in operation. They take a while to download, especially over a 28.8K modem -- you will want to save them to a temporary spot (on your hard disk $0 you can play them more than once. Hydraulic excavator in operation (1.54 MB) Shows the general operation of the arm and cab Excavator cylinder and piston rod in operation (4.8 MB) Close up of the cylinder and piston rod http://science.howstuffworks.com/hydraulic.htm/printable 6/9/2006Howstuffworks "How Hydraulic Machines Work" Page 12 of 12 ‘operation (2.82 MB) ‘Shows another very agile hydraulic system ee eee cs Dump truck in operation (4.2 MB) ‘Shows a dump truck dumping a load Lots More Information Related HowStuffWorks Articles How Caterpillar Backhoe Loaders Work How Caterpillar Skid Steer Loaders Works How Hydraulic Cranes Work How the ‘Jaws of Life’ Work How Wave Pools Work How Animatronics Work How Force, Power, Torque and Eneray Work How a Block and Tackle Works How Brakes Work How Gears Work More Great Links ‘Yahoo! Directory: Hydraulics * Caterpillar - Maker of large hydraulic machines # Norther Tool and Equipment - Their paper catalog offers a good selection of hydraulic pumps, cylinders, motors and valves. # Build Your Own Fire Wood Splitter sand Condtons Contact About Help ESET (ET Hy Santor hitp://science.howstuffworks.com/hydraulic.htm/printable 6/9/2006