Automation in Construction 47 (2014) 62–68

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Automation in Construction
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/autcon

Efficiency analysis and evaluation of energy-saving

pressure-compensated circuit for hybrid hydraulic excavator
Tao Wang a,b,⁎, Qingfeng Wang b
a
College of Mechanical and Vehicle Engineering, Hunan University, 410082 Changsha, China
b
The State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power Transmission and Control, Zhejiang University, 310027 Hangzhou, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A hydraulic cylinder driven scheme combining a pressure compensator and an energy recovery device together
Received 18 October 2013 has been proposed to achieve good control operation and energy-saving capability simultaneously. In this paper,
Received in revised form 9 June 2014 its efficiency characteristics are further investigated in order to provide analytical and experimental references to
Accepted 25 July 2014
practical applications. Since an excavator owns multiple actuators, a general schematic configuration including
Available online 15 August 2014
hydraulic cylinders with and without energy recovery is developed and analyzed. Based on the analysis of energy
Keywords:
losses in every conversion, component selections and possible improvements are discussed, and then the design
Energy recovery flowchart and criteria of key parameters are also presented. Finally, experiments under different load and
Efficiency analysis velocity conditions are implemented on a test bench. Energy distributions, recovery efficiencies and component
Hydraulic cylinder efficiencies are all evaluated.
Excavator © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Pressure compensation

1. Introduction
Hydraulic excavators are widely applied in construction. However,
one remarkable drawback in their applications is the low energy
efficiency [1], which mainly comes from the energy conversions in
power systems and hydraulic systems. In individual engine driven
power systems, the fuel economy is usually decreased due to the varia-
tion of working points [2]. Therefore, as a highly efficient driving meth-
od, the hybrid power technology is extended from traditional
vehicles to excavators, which mainly involves system design, hybridiza-
tion structure, modeling and control strategy [1–7,17,18].
The commonly used hydraulic systems in excavators include
positive flow control systems, negative flow control systems and load
sensing control systems. All of them are capable of matching the
pump flow with the operation requirement so as to reduce the output
energy of power systems. However, in these hydraulic systems, a large
number of energy losses are still existing. Some of them are produced
when cylinders are lowering down, and some come from the pressure
difference between two actuators driven by the same pump [8]. The en-
ergy losses are dissipated in throttles and converted to heat which leads
to the negative effects on the cooling of hydraulic oil [9]. Besides the
aforementioned open-circuit hydraulic systems, the applications of
closed-circuit hydraulic systems in excavators are also investigated,
for they totally eliminate the throttling losses and have good energy-
⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 571 87951314 8108; fax: +86 571 87951941.
E-mail address: twang001@126.com (T. Wang).
saving potential. But the controller design is quite challenging because
pump-controlled systems usually have low damping ratios and stability
margins in comparison to throttle-controlled systems [10,11].
Energy recovery is an effective approach to reduce the energy losses
in hydraulic systems. In hydraulic cylinder driven circuits, energy can be
recovered through cross connection [12], hydraulic accumulator [13,14]
and electrical storage [15,16]. There are two indexes to evaluate the
performance of an energy recovery system. Firstly, the energy recovery
efficiency should be acceptable, otherwise the energy saving is insignif-
icant and the system is meaningless. Secondly, the actuator controllabil-
ity in the system with energy recovery should not be worse than
traditional systems so that various required operations can still be
performed normally.
The electrical recovery is suitable for hybrid hydraulic excavators
where the electrical storages such as batteries or super capacitors are
equipped [17,18]. In an electrical recovery system, the cylinder velocity
is usually governed by controlling the rotational speed of a hydraulic
motor coaxially connected with an electrical generator. To improve
the cylinder controllability, some compensation is also used in control-
ler design [19]. However, this volumetric control is difficult to match the
traditional throttling control in practice, because excavators usually
have high requirements on control performance.
An energy-saving pressure-compensated scheme, which combines a
pressure compensator and an energy recovery device together, can real-
ize effective energy recovery and guarantee good operation of hydraulic
cylinders simultaneously [20]. In this paper, its general configuration in
excavators, efficiency analysis and evaluation, and relevant parameter

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2014.07.012
0926-5805/© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 T. Wang, Q. Wang / Automation in Construction 47 (2014) 62–68
design are further investigated, aiming to provide analytical and
experimental guidelines for practical applications.
The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, the configuration of
the proposed system is presented and analyzed by the comparison to
the load sensing system. Section 3 studies the energy losses, efficiency
and possible improvement in each energy conversion. Section 4 dis-
cusses the quantitative relations and design criteria of key parameters.
In Section 5, experiments with different loads and motion velocities
are implemented to evaluate the energy distributions and efficiencies
of the proposed circuit. Finally, the conclusions of this paper are
drawn in Section 6.
2. System configuration
The energy-saving pressure-compensated scheme is to replace the
pressure compensator in a conventional load sensing control system
with an energy recovery device consisting of a hydraulic motor and a co-
axially coupled generator. And the compensation part is installed in the
meter-out oil line in order to counterbalance overrunning load. By using
this scheme, we can design a more efficient load sensing control system,
where energy losses due to overrunning load or multi-actuator effect
can be recovered in electrical form. The configurations of the two load
sensing control systems are presented and analyzed as follows.
2.1. Load sensing system
An advanced load sensing control technology called load indepen-
dent flow distribution or LUDV is introduced for comparison at first.
This commercially available system is proposed by Bosch Rexroth. It
has the advantage that actuators with lower loads can automatically
slow down in order to maintain the flow to the actuator with the
highest load when there is no sufficient pump flow. In this system,
each control valve operates with a pressure compensator downstream
as shown in Fig. 1. The highest load pressure is used as the load sensing
pilot line to control the pressure compensators so that when the pump
flow corresponding to actuator commands is insufficient, the flow to
every actuator will be reduced proportionally.
It can be observed that the pressure compensators operate with
energy consumptions which are related to the pressure differences
between actuators. Moreover, there will be a large amount of energy
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the load independent flow distribution system.
63
dissipated when the loads are overrunning. Therefore, although the
pump outlet pressure is adaptive to the highest load in the load sensing
system, the energy losses are still considerable.
2.2. Developed system
A hydraulic system with the energy-saving pressure-compensated
scheme is developed for hybrid hydraulic excavators in order to realize
energy recovery while maintaining an equivalent controllability of the
load sensing system. Fig. 2 shows the schematic diagram, where both
of the cylinder circuits with and without energy recovery are included
in one system, for there are only a part of actuators having enough
energy-saving potential in an excavator. Considering the amount of re-
coverable energy, it is reasonable to apply the energy recovery scheme
to the boom cylinder and the arm cylinder. As shown in the figure, the
load sensing pilot line adopts the highest inlet pressure of operated
actuators through shuttle valves and governs the pump outlet pressure
to the sum of the dominant load pressure and a constant margin. In the
cylinder circuit with energy recovery, when its load condition is over-
running or its operated pressure is not the highest, the hydraulic
motor and the generator convert the outlet energy of the cylinder to
electrical form and provide compensated pressure. The recovered ener-
gy can be stored in electrical energy storage devices or directly supplied
to electrical energy consumption devices. With the energy-saving com-
pensator, the flow to each actuator in the developed system can also be
reduced proportionally when the pump flow is insufficient as in the load
independent flow distribution system.
3. Energy losses and efficiency
Based on the developed system configuration, energy losses of the
main components can be analyzed to select appropriate types and
make possible improvements. Fig. 3 shows the energy distribution in
the cylinder circuit with energy recovery, where a super capacitor is
employed as the electrical energy storage device. It should be noticed
that the figure only presents the cylinder movement in one direction,
Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of the developed hydraulic system.
64 T. Wang, Q. Wang / Automation in Construction 47 (2014) 62–68

Fg , vc The losses between the energy in the inlet and outlet of the cylinder
is given as
Z
ΔEc ¼ ½ f c vc þ pci Δqco þ ðpci −pco ÞΔqci dt ð6Þ
pci , qci pco , qco
where vc is the cylinder velocity, Δqco is the external leakage flow, and
Δqci is the internal leakage flow.
U c , C0 Similarly, the hydraulic energy in the inlet of the hydraulic motor is
expressed as
Z
U dc , I dc Emi ¼ pm qm dt ð7Þ

pp , qp pm , qm Tm , ωm
uabc , iabc where pm and qm are the pressure and flow rate in the inlet of the
hydraulic motor, respectively.
The losses between the energy in the inlet of the hydraulic motor
and the cylinder outlet include meter-out losses and external leakage
losses as
Z
ΔEout ¼ ðΔpout qm þ pco Δqout Þdt ð8Þ
Fig. 3. Energy distribution in the cylinder circuit with energy recovery.

where Δpout is the pressure drop over the meter-out orifice and Δqin is
but the following analysis can be applied to the cylinder movements in the leakage flow between the two chambers. As can be seen, the
either direction. meter-in and meter-out losses are coupled through a single spool.
The hydraulic energy in the pump outlet is given as The mechanical energy in the coupled shaft of the hydraulic motor
Z and the generator is given as
Ep ¼ pp qp dt ð1Þ Z
Ems ¼ T m ωm dt ð9Þ
where pp is the pump outlet pressure and qp is the pump flow rate.
The hydraulic energy in the cylinder inlet is expressed as where Tm is the mechanical torque and ωm is the angular speed.
Z The energy losses in the hydraulic motor include the leakage losses
Eci ¼ pci qci dt ð2Þ and mechanical losses as
Z  
where pci and qci are the pressure and flow rate in the cylinder inlet, re- ΔEm ¼ pm Δqm þ T f ωm dt ð10Þ
spectively. Herein the cylinder inlet is determined by the movement di-
rection, which means the cylinder inlet is the rod chamber when the where Δqm is the leakage flow and Tf is the frictional torque of the hy-
cylinder is retracting and is the piston chamber when it is extending. draulic motor. To make the system efficient, an axial piston hydraulic
The losses between the energy in the pump outlet and the cylinder motor is a preferable candidate due to its high volumetric and mechan-
inlet include meter-in losses and external leakage losses as ical efficiencies.
Z   The ac energy in the windings of the generator is given as
ΔEin ¼ Δpin qci þ pp Δqin dt ð3Þ Z
Egw ¼ ðia ua þ ib ub þ ic uc Þdt ð11Þ
where Δpin is the pressure drop over the meter-in orifice and Δqin is the
leakage flow between the two chambers. To reduce ΔEin, it is preferable where ia, ib, and ic are the currents in the three-phase windings of the
to use a control valve with a small rating pressure drop and little generator, and ua, ub, and uc are the corresponding voltages. The types
leakage. of generators can be categorized as induction generators, electrically
The hydraulic energy in the cylinder outlet is expressed as excited synchronous generators, permanent magnet generators, switch
Z reluctance generators and so on. Considering efficiency and power
Eco ¼ pco qco dt ð4Þ density, the permanent magnet generator is especially suitable for ener-
gy recovery application. The energy losses in the permanent magnet
generator can be given as
where pco and qco are the pressure and the flow rate in the cylinder out-
Z  
let, respectively. To discuss the sources of Eco, the force balance equation
of the cylinder is written as ΔEg ¼ P cu þ P fe þ P gm þ P gs dt ð12Þ

pci Aci −pco Aco −F g −f c ¼ 0 ð5Þ where Pcu is the copper losses, Pfe is the iron losses, Pgm is the mechanical
losses and Pgs is the stray losses of the generator. The copper losses and
where Aci and Aco are the acting area in the inlet and outlet of the cylin- the iron losses usually form the majority of the total quantity and are
der, Fg is the force produced by gravity, and fc is the sum of coulomb expressed respectively as
force and viscous force. It can be seen that pco increases with the in-  
2 2 2
crease of pci which is related to the pump outlet pressure. In addition, P cu ¼ ia þ ib þ ic Rs ð13Þ
when the load is overrunning, Fg becomes negative and pco is also en-
hanced. Therefore, the pump supplied energy and the potential energy  
2 1:5 1:5 2 2
P fe ¼ kh f e Bi þ kex f e Bi þ ked f e Bi V i ð14Þ
of overrunning loads are the sources of the recoverable energy.
 T. Wang, Q. Wang / Automation in Construction 47 (2014) 62–68
Udc
Uc
C0 R1
R2
Fig. 4. Simplified model of super capacitor.
where Rs is the winding resistance, kh is the hysteresis coefficient, kex is
the excess losses coefficient, ked is the eddy current losses coefficient, fe
is the electrical frequency, Bi is the flux density in iron, and Vi is the ef-
fective volume of stator iron. In order to minimize the generator losses,
an optimization design is proposed and verified in earlier research [21].
The dc energy in the output terminals of the converter is expressed as
Z
Edc ¼ U dc I dc dt ð15Þ
where Udc is the dc bus voltage and Idc is the charging current.
The energy losses in the converter mainly include the switching
losses and conduction losses of insulated gate bipolar transistors as
Z Fig. 6 shows the parameter design flowchart of the cylinder circuit
ΔEcon ¼ ðEswit þ Econd Þf s dt ð16Þ
where Eswit is the switching losses and Econd is the conduction losses in a
modulation period which can be provided by the manufacturer [22],
and fs is the modulation frequency. There are many factors affecting
Eswit and Econd such as load current, junction temperature, dc bus volt-
age, charging current and gate resistance. It can be observed that the
transistor losses are increased with the modulation frequency according
to the expression. In the experiments in Section 5, the modulation
frequency is set to 10 kHz, with which both energy losses and current
ripples in the converter are at low levels.
The recovered energy of the super capacitor can be expressed as
1  2 2

Esc ¼ C 0 U c −U i ð17Þ
2
where C0 is the capacity, and Uc and Ui are the current voltage and the
initial voltages of the supper capacitor, respectively. Fig. 4 shows the
simplified model of the super capacitor which consists of an ideal
Fig. 5. Energy flow from recoverable sources to storage device.
65
capacitor, a series resistance R1 and a parallel resistance R2. Then the
charging losses can be given as
Z "  #
U dc 2 U 2dc
ΔEchar ¼ I dc − R1 þ dt: ð18Þ
R2 R2
From the point of energy saving, it is necessary to select a super ca-
pacitor with low internal resistances and reduce the length of the dc bus
wires so as to make the charging losses as small as possible. A proper
charging speed is also beneficial to the energy storage efficiency of the
super capacitor [23].
Summarizing the aforementioned losses together, the energy flow
from the recoverable sources to the storage device is shown in Fig. 5.
In essentially speaking, the potential energy of overrunning loads is con-
verted from the pump supplied energy when total operating cycles in-
cluding lifting and lowering are considered. Then the total recovery
efficiency can be given as
Esc
ηtot ¼  100%: ð19Þ
Ep
4. Parameter analysis and design
In a hybrid hydraulic excavator, the hydraulic cylinders correspond-
ing to the operating actuators are predesigned, and the super capacitor
is usually determined by the requirement of the hybrid power system.
Therefore, the research objects of parameter analysis and design mainly
include the control valve, the hydraulic motor, the permanent magnet
generator and the converter.
with energy recovery. Firstly, the flow rate and the pressure in the
cylinder outlet can be obtained through the test data in practical opera-
tions, and the working voltage of the super capacitor is a known value.
Secondly, according to the rating flow rate, the parameters of the con-
trol valve can be determined with the same way as a conventional
pressure-compensated valve. The voltage class of the converter is
chosen as the sum of the super capacitor's voltage and the maximum
voltage spike. The third step is to set the rating rotational speed of the
hydraulic motor and the generator to a properly high value, for power
density usually increases with the increase of rotational speed. Herein
it should be noticed that there are maximum speed limits for hydraulic
motors with different displacements. The working pressure of the
hydraulic motor is given as
pm ¼ pco −Δpout : ð20Þ
Fourthly, the displacement of the hydraulic motor is calculated as
V m ¼ 2πqm ηV =ωm ð21Þ
66 T. Wang, Q. Wang / Automation in Construction 47 (2014) 62–68

Flow rate through Pressure in cylinder Working voltage of

cylinder outlet outlet super capacitor

Flow rate through

Pressure drop over
control valve and
control valve
hydraulic motor
Voltage class of
converter
Rotational speed of
Working pressure
hydraulic motor and
of hydraulic motor
electrical generator

Displacement of Working torque of Current class of

hydraulic motor electrical generator converter

Fig. 6. Parameter design flowchart of the cylinder circuit with energy recovery.

where ηV is the volumetric efficiency of the hydraulic motor. The rating
electromagnetic torque of the generator is given as
T g ¼ pm V m ηm ηg =2π
where ηm is the mechanical efficiency of the hydraulic motor and ηg is
the total efficiency of the generator.
The loaded current in the converter can be estimated as
of which the sampling time is 0.0001 s in the vector control of the gen-
erator and 0.001 s in other situations. The joystick provides the input in-
terface of target operation velocity. The test bench is also equipped with
ð22Þ various sensors including flow meters, pressure sensors, torque sensors,
speed sensors, current sensors and voltage sensors to evaluate energy
losses and efficiency.
5.2. Experimental results

T g ωm
icon ¼ pffiffiffi : ð23Þ Energy distributions under different operation conditions are
3U dc displayed in Tables 1 and 2. Based on the energy distributions, energy
losses in every part can also be calculated. Speed trajectories and cylin-
And then the current class of the converter is chosen as the sum of der chamber pressures are shown in Figs. 8 and 9, from which the recov-
the loaded current and the maximum current spike. erable energy varying with loads can be observed. The no-load
The parameter design flowchart is applied to a test bench of boom condition means that the bucket is empty and the loaded condition
cylinder circuits for hybrid hydraulic excavators. The flow rate and pres-
sure in the cylinder outlet are about 2e−3 m3/s and 14 MPa. The work-
ing voltage of the super capacitor is between 300 and 400 V. The rating
flow rate of the control valve is 1.67e−3 m3/s with the rating pressure
drop of 3.5 MPa. The employed control valve is an existing one so as to
reduce the bench cost. The displacement, rating speed and working
pressure of the hydraulic motor are 5.5e − 5 m3, 2100 rpm and
10 MPa, respectively. The rating torque and speed of the generator are
100 N m and 2100 rpm. The voltage class and the current class of the
converter are 600 V and 200 A, respectively.

5. Experimental evaluation

To evaluate the efficiency of the developed hydraulic circuit, experi-

ments are implemented on the test bench with the determined
parameters.

5.1. Introduction of test bench

Fig. 7 shows the structure of the test bench, of which the main
parameters are presented in the previous section. The piston diameter
and rod diameter of the boom cylinder are 0.115 m and 0.065 m, respec-
tively. The variable displacement pump is driven by a hybrid power
source consisting of a diesel engine and an electrical machine. The
proportional relief valve, which governs the outlet pressure of the oil
source, can be used to simulate the multi-actuator effect by setting dif-
ferent values. The hydraulic pump, motor and valves are Bosch Rexroth
products. The super capacitor is a Maxwell product and its capacity is
6.25 F. A digital signal processing card DS1104 is used as the controller, Fig. 7. Test bench of boom cylinder circuit with energy recovery.
 T. Wang, Q. Wang / Automation in Construction 47 (2014) 62–68 67

Table 1
Energy distribution under no-load condition.

Boom cylinder velocity 0.025 m/s 0.050 m/s 0.075 m/s 0.100 m/s

Rising Lowering Rising Lowering Rising Lowering Rising Lowering

Ep (J) 18,315 7011 34,729 15,935 54,612 23,873 70,243 34,540

Emi (J) 4680 8017 7890 18,111 10,703 28,187 13,856 38,886
Ems (J) 3714 6782 6607 14,667 8703 22,704 10,989 29,937
Edc (J) 2738 5029 5592 12,465 7238 19,836 9159 24,846
Esc (J) 2106 4547 5104 11,634 6539 18,753 8006 21,895
ηtot 0.263 0.330 0.322 0.285

Ep: energy in pump outlet; Emi: energy in motor inlet; Ems: energy in motor shaft; Edc: energy in converter output; Esc: energy in super capacitor; ηtot: total energy recovery efficiency.

Table 2
Energy distribution under loaded condition.

Boom cylinder velocity 0.025 m/s 0.050 m/s 0.075 m/s 0.100 m/s

Rising Lowering Rising Lowering Rising Lowering Rising Lowering

Ep (J) 17,844 7964 34,775 16,486 53,719 24,977 70,082 34,349

Emi (J) – 9070 – 22,507 – 35,329 – 47,717
Ems (J) – 7431 – 18,290 – 29,019 – 38,116
Edc (J) – 5854 – 15,196 – 25,087 – 31,790
Esc (J) – 5359 – 14,241 23,325 – 27,617
ηtot 0.208 0.278 0.296 0.276

Ep: energy in pump outlet; Emi: energy in motor inlet; Ems: energy in motor shaft; Edc: energy in converter output; Esc: energy in super capacitor; ηtot: total energy recovery efficiency.

means that the bucket is full. Considering load conditions and move-
ment directions, there are four types of boom cylinder operations,
which are rising without load, lowering without load, rising with load,
and lowering with load, respectively. In the experiments, the outlet
pressure of the pump is set to the value which is just capable of raising
the boom with full load. Therefore, there is no energy to recover when
the boom is rising under loaded condition and the related blanks are
filled with “–” in Table 2, which is in accordance with the analysis of re-
coverable energy sources in Section 3. In other operation types, the
quantity of recovered energy is determined by the pump supplied ener-
gy and the potential energy of overrunning loads. As shown in the ta-
According to the measured data, the efficiencies of the hydraulic
motor, the generator and converter, and the capacitor can be obtained
as shown in Tables 3–5. It should be noticed that in the tables case
(a) denotes rising under no-load condition, case (b) denotes lowering
under no-load condition, and case (c) denotes lowering under loaded
condition. As can be seen, the energy conversion efficiencies in the hy-
draulic motor are between 0.77 and 0.85. The energy conversion effi-
ciencies in the generator and converter are mainly between 0.78 and
0.88. The charging efficiencies of the super capacitor are mainly
Boom cylinder velocity (m/s)

bles, energy recovery efficiencies between 0.26 and 0.33 can be 0.10
achieved under most conditions, and then the energy consumption of
the prime mover can be saved approximately by the corresponding 0.05
ratio with the reuse of the recovered energy. It can also be observed
0.00
that the efficiencies are relatively small when at low boom cylinder
velocities.
-0.05

-0.10
0 4 8 12 16
Boom cylinder velocity (m/s)

0.10
Boom cylinder pressures (MPa)

15
0.05
Piston chamber

0.00 10

-0.05
5 Rod chamber

-0.10
0 4 8 12 16
0
Boom cylinder pressures (MPa)

0 4 8 12 16
15
Piston chamber
Time (s)

10 Fig. 9. Speed trajectory and cylinder chamber pressures under loaded condition.
Rod chamber

5
Table 3
Efficiency of the hydraulic motor.
0 Boom velocity 0.025 m/s 0.050 m/s 0.075 m/s 0.100 m/s
0 4 8 12 16
Time (s) Efficiency in case (a) 0.794 0.837 0.813 0.793
Efficiency in case (b) 0.846 0.810 0.805 0.770
Efficiency in case (c) 0.819 0.813 0.821 0.799
Fig. 8. Speed trajectory and cylinder chamber pressures under no-load condition.
68 T. Wang, Q. Wang / Automation in Construction 47 (2014) 62–68

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The authors gratefully acknowledge the National High Technology Re- (4) (2012) 856–863.
search and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2010AA044401), [22] Infineon, Datasheet of IGBT FS400R06A1E3, available from http://www.infineon.
the Open Fund of the State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power Transmission com/.
[23] Q. Xiao, Control Strategy and Parameter Matching of Hybrid System in Hydraulic
and Control (Grant No. GZKF-201305) and the Fundamental Research Excavator, Doctoral thesis Zhejiang University, 2008.
Funds for the Central Universities.