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Energy efficient hydraulic systems and regenerative capabilities

Article · June 2005

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 The Ninth Scandinavian International Conference on Fluid Power, SICFP’05, June 1-3, 2005, Linköping, Sweden

ENERGY EFFICIENT HYDRAULIC SYSTEMS AND

REGENERATIVE CAPABILITIES

Karl-Erik Rydberg
Division of Fluid and Mech. Eng. Systems, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
Linköping University, SE-581 83 LINKÖPING, SWEDEN
E-mail: karry@ikp.liu.se

ABSTRACT
Today, energy efficiency of hydraulically driven machineries has become one of the
most important topics in system design, mainly because of increased fuel costs and new
regulations about combustion engine emissions. To meet the increased requirements on
higher efficiency and better functionality, components and systems have been developed
over the years. For machines like vehicles, fork-lifters, manipulators etc operating in a
cyclic manner the energy consumption can be considerably reduced, by using special
valve concepts or hydrostatic machine control in conjunction with hydraulic
accumulators as energy storage devices.
By using accumulators, a part of the potential load energy can be reused, which make it
possible to design a system with improved endurance compared with a similar one
without such devices. This kind of regenerative capabilities increase the power supply
capability. Optimizing the system that way will give the designer a couple of new
alternatives. The additional power can be used to improve the performance of the
system, without increasing the power from the existing hydraulic supply units.
The aim of this paper is to show how energy efficient systems can be used in mobile
applications in order to reduce energy consumption and achieve increased performances.
The main result of this work is that some of the important design parameters have been
examined and quantified in a way that they can become useful for further system
development.

Keywords: Distributed Valve Control, Hydraulic Accumulators, Mobile Hydraulics,

Secondary Control, Transformers.

1. Introduction
The most common strategy for controlling hydraulic systems is still primary control.
The linear velocity or shaft speed of the hydraulic cylinder / motor units, are controlled
by the flow from the primary power unit. In addition to the primary controlled systems,
constant pressure systems could be applied. This concept will characterize secondary
controlled systems, where the hydraulic output units (single motors or transformers
combined with cylinders) are connected to a constant pressure rail. The secondary unit
controls the output torque or force to the load.

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The basic concepts for primary and secondary control of loads with rotational and linear
motion are shown in Fig 1.

Primary control Secondary control

Acc.

E Jt E Jt

Throttle control Secondary control

Mt Acc. Mt

Losses Transformer

Fig. 1: Primary and secondary control of loads with rotational and linear motion, [1]

2. Design concepts for reduction of hydraulic losses

2.1 Valve actuated systems
In mobile hydraulic systems different kinds of proportional controlled spool valves
(open-center, closed-center and pressure compensated valves) are used. As shown in Fig
1, valve controlled systems are normally affected by high power losses, because of the
throttling flow control. Due to the fact that all mobile machineries are very oscillative
the most important design feature is the required damping of resonance frequencies in
the system. The damping effect in a valve controlled hydraulic system belongs to the
flow-pressure characteristics of the control valve. The load flow (qL) must be sensitive
to the load pressure (pL) in the way that qL is reduced if pL increases. However, it’s
possible to reach high stiffness and accurate control of a valve actuated system, but
normally it means high losses and high flow rates. Therefore, this leads to a conflict
between high energy efficiency and high hydraulic damping.
In all fluid power applications a mechanical load has to be controlled by an actuator in
respect of velocity and force. A new dimension of the ways to look upon these control
aspects is to use a control valve (proportional or servo valve), which is capable of
controlling both flow and pressure in the actuator ports (two ports for a double cylinder
or motor). One possibility to implement those facilities and also to reach both high

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energy efficiency and high damping in a valve controlled system is to use distributed
throttle control as shown in Fig 2.

Fig. 2: Distributed throttle control with load pressure feedback, [2].

The objective of the control strategy is to control the load velocity without changing the
preset value of the system pressure and vice versa. In practice this means decoupling of
the two states variables, velocity and pressure. The basic components for this decoupled
control are two decoupled pressure controllers, one for each cylinder chamber.
An interesting application of a distributed valve controlled system for tele-handlers, has
recently been presented by HUSCO Internationals, see Fig 3.

Fig. 3: Distributed hydraulic control system (INCOVA) for tele-handler, HUSCO, [3].

HUSCO has used high performance 2-position, 2-way valve to exploit the distributed
nature of the system and to allow for the flexible metering modes. This type of valve
provides very low leakage, fast response, contamination robustness and reliability
required for tele-handler applications. The control strategy is based on load pressure
feedback to determine the valve metering modes according to the operator command
velocity.

Automotive electro-hydraulics has advanced significantly within the last 10 years.

However, for practical implementation of the system described above the problem is
still to find suitable valves on the market. The valves must be controlled with high
accuracy and the required bandwidth is relatively high. Anyhow, in order to meet risen
requirements on hydraulic systems the manufacturers have made great efforts to
improve the power and performance of hydraulic valves. Beside the HUSCO valve

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concept another example is the DFplus valve from Parker Hannifin, illustrated in Fig 4,
[4]. In this valve the spool actuator is a moving coil (voice coil) proportional magnet.

Fig. 4: The DFplus valve and its flow characteristics in comparison with other valves, Parker, [4].

Energizing the coil moves the spool to a position determined by direction of current
flow. Actual position is sent over a high-resolution feedback loop to the control
electronics. When the signal switches off or in a power failure, a week spring drives the
valve spool to a defined position. Because of the high force from magnet the valve spool
control is fast and very accurate, as indicated in Fig 4. The main drawbacks of the
moving coil concept are that the power consumption and weight are 2 – 3 times higher
than for a conventional proportional magnet.

2.2 Transformers in secondary controlled systems

Secondary controlled units have existed on the market for about 20 years and have been
used in both mobile and industrial applications. In a transformer for linear motion
control, the unit must have at least three ports, one supply port, one (or two) load ports
and one tank port. The common way to build such a transformer, has been to combine
two hydrostatic units, one with fixed and one with variable displacement. During recent
years, a new design concept has been developed by Innas BV in Netherlands. The idea is
to build a transformer by using one hydrostatic unit with three ports, see Fig 5.

Fig. 5: Innas transformer concepts, [5]

The newest machine concept designed by Innas is named as a floating cup machine,
shown in the upper right corner of Fig 5. The new machine feature is a high number of

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pistons arranged in a double ring, back-to-back configuration. Each piston has a ball
shaped end, which is sealing directly on the cylinder wall. Experiments have proven the
viability of the new concept. The floating cup principle has been demonstrated to be
stable in a wide range of pressures and rotational speeds.

Efficiencies of different transformer concepts

The overall efficiency of a transformer depends on how the machines are arranged. In
other words it depends on how the hydraulic energy is transferred through the machines,
in serial connections or in both serial and parallel connection. The machine
configuration also set the requirements on the displacement needed to transfer some
amount of power. A comparison of three different transformer concepts (TR I, II and III)
are made in Fig 6.

Fig. 6: Transformer concepts (I, II and III) and required displacement for 75 kW and 5000 rpm, [6].

An interesting comparison is the efficiency characteristics within the operational region

for the different designs. In Fig 7, the 80% efficiency curve is shown for the concepts,
which means that efficiency is 80% or higher in the region above the line. The figure
indicates that transformer III has the biggest region of high efficiency and transformer II
the smallest because of high pressure on both ports of the fixed displacement machine.

Fig. 7: High efficiency regions for the three different concepts, region above line means efficiency higher
than 80%, [6].

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2.3 Some recently developed system with energy recovering
By using an accumulator in a lifting system, for example a forklift truck, the energy
consumption can be considerably reduced. The accumulator can be used in a lifting
system as shown in Fig. 8. In this system, developed by BT Products [7], the counter
balance function has been combined with a regenerative lowering function (the electric
motor is used as a generator) for optimal efficiency.

Fig. 8: BT Products high-level very narrow aisle truck, Vector C15 and the hydraulic system, [7].

The accumulator is connected to a support cylinder that gives a lifting force proportional
to the pressure in the accumulator. During a lifting sequence, the torque and the power
of the electrical motor will vary in a quite small range. That gives an opportunity to
design the pump controlled hydraulic system for highly efficient operation.
By combining both types of energy saving technologies (counter balance function and
regenerative lowering) the optimal solution has been found. The energy reduction
potential for a lifting and lowering cycle is illustrated in Fig 9.

Fig. 9: Energy saving capabilities with regenerative lowering and support cylinder, Vector C15, [7].

6
Another way to solve the power transmission problem in a forklift truck is to use a
hydraulic transformer, which is illustrated in Fig 10. This is actually a secondary
controlled system and the lowering energy can be stored in an accumulator. In order to
minimize the energy consumption the system design and control of the supply unit and
the transformer is still of great importance.

Acc. Transformer

Safety
valve

M
ML

Fig. 10: Hydraulic fork lift system with transformer.

Hydraulic manipulators have been used in mobile machines for about four decades.
They play an important role in the performance of machines like wheel loaders,
excavators and forest machines. Energy efficiency is one very important topic in the
R&D of such manipulators. These applications have now been a subject for the use of
transformers. A new type of Energy Regeneration unit using Hydraulic Accumulator
Balancing (HAB) has been developed at Tampere University of Technology. The work
of designing, modeling, implementing, and testing of a HAB unit is presented in ref [8].
The log-lift crane application with a HAB unit is depicted in Fig 11. The working
behavior of the tested boom with a HAB-unit is not yet fully developed for practical
application, because of quite complex control problems. Also, the overall efficiency
improvement seems to be low, about 10%, but strongly dependent upon the working
cycle.

Fig. 11: Transformer unit (HAB) for hydraulic boom control, [8].

7
Although, many energy regeneration applications are widely used in industry and many
developments geared to energy saving are applied on mobile machines, but only a few
energy recovering systems have been developed for hydraulic booms. Lars Bruun has
developed an application called "Eco Mate" based on a hydraulic accumulator system.
An example of application where Eco Mate is used is on a 50 ton crawler excavator
from CAT. The excavator and the principle of the Eco Mate system are shown in Fig
12.

Fig. 12: Eco Mate system principle and the excavator application, [9].

In the excavator application the Eco Mate system is used for control of the inner boom
cylinders. Valve blocks are also included in the total system solution, but for the Eco
Mate system only logic functions are needed and therefore throttle losses are very low.
Figures mentioned about the reduction of fuel consumption for vertical lifting motion is
about 37% compared to conventional systems. The Eco Mate system seems to be one of
the most successful innovations in mobile machineries during the latest 10 years.

3. System dynamics using transformers

About the design of energy efficient systems the control problems has been addressed
above. In order to design the system controllers the dynamics of the hardware must be
analyzed. The impact on the controller belongs to the actuator-load dynamics as well as
the system concept and the components arrangement. Fig 13 shows a transformer
application with two variable displacement units mechanically connected to the same
shaft. In the first case the transformer is a single unit and in the second case the
transformer shaft is connected to a combustion engine (CE).

Load Load

Acc
p1 xp
p L Ap
Motor
q1 qL Control
e1 e2

Tm

1
CE 1
wm 2 2

Fig. 13: Single transformer unit and transformer connected to a combustion engine shaft.

8
In both applications, shown in Fig 13, the actuator-load dynamics is the same and can be
derived as follows:
Load flow from machine 2: q L = ε 2 D2ωm − Ct 2 p L (1)

dx p VL dp L
Cylinder flow: q L = Ap − (2)
dt β e dt
Assuming a single mass load on the piston rod and neglecting friction forces gives the
2
M d xp
load pressure as: pL = t (3)
Ap dt 2
Linearization and laplace-transformation of eq. (1) – (3) gives the expression of the
transfer function, piston velocity (s∆Xp) over displacement setting (ε2) for machine 2, as
s∆X p D2ωm / Ap
= (4)
∆ε 2 s 2
2δ h
+ s +1
ωh2 ωh
where the hydraulic resonance frequency (ωh) and its relative damping (δh) are,

β e Ap2 Ct 2 βe M t
ωh = [rad/s] and δ h = [-] (5)
VL M t 2 Ap VL
According to the nomenclature in Fig 13 the loss free torque equation for the
transformer shaft (tank pressure, pt ≈ 0) can be expressed as:
dω m
ε 1 D1 p1 − ε 2 D2 p L = J m (6)
dt
The parameters in eq. (1) to (6) are:
Ap piston area [m2] Ct machine leakage flow coeff. [m5/(Ns)]
D machine displacement [m3/rad] Jm machine and shaft inertia [kg m2]
Mt load mass [kg] VL load pressure volume [m3]
βe bulk modulus [Pa] ε machine displacement setting [-]
ωm angular shaft speed [rad/s]
Analyzing the above equations it can be recognized that there are two coupled output
signals to control, the piston velocity (s∆Xp) and the transformer shaft speed (ωm). From
equation (5) it can be noticed that the hydraulic damping is proportional to Ct2, the
leakage flow coefficient of machine 2. Using a high efficient machine, means that the
leakage flow is low and therefore the damping effect will be low. That will raise the
demand for artificial damping to stabilize the system, which can be achieved by
implementing load pressure feedback in the control loop.
Equation (4) shows that the steady state gain for the piston speed control is proportional
to the transformer shaft speed. Smooth speed control requires a very stable shaft speed.
This is hard to realize because of the low inertia (Jm) for the single transformer. Low
inertia means that the shaft speed (ωm) will be very sensitive to changes in displacement
settings (ε1, ε2) and load pressure (pL), as indicated in eq. (6). According to the control

9
problem of a single transformer the requirements on fastness and accuracy of the
displacement settings (ε1, ε2) control will be high. This control problem has been
realized in practical implementations, as for example the system shown in Fig 11, [8].
Except fast and accurate control the control strategy is of great importance. Decoupled
control of shaft speed and load pressure can be a useful strategy to solve the control
problem.
Looking at the system depicted to the right in Fig 13, it can be seen that the shaft speed
control problem is more or less eliminated. In that case the shaft speed will be controlled
by the engine. However, the idling losses will be higher in this system compared to the
single transformer, because the shaft will rotate with a quite high speed all the time.

4. Accumulator design
In the design of a system equipped with a hydraulic accumulator there are two important
aspects to consider. One is how the system performs from the energy point of view.
Secondly, to get really good use of the accumulator the designer has to consider how it
will affect the need of power supply.
Sizing hydraulic accumulators has traditionally been accomplished by assuming the gas
to be ideal subjected to either adiabatic or isothermal processes depending on whether
the cycle time involved is short or long. However, in practical applications the state
variables of the gas (pressure and temperature) varies in a wide range and the heat
exchange between the gas and its surroundings will influence the process and predict the
round tip efficiency of the accumulator. For a proper system design it is very important
to use a model describing the real accumulator process.

4.1 Accumulator model

According to reference [10] the gas pressure as a function of temperature and specific
volume will be calculated by the Beattie Bridgman Equation (B-B Eq.):
R ⋅T  C    b  A  a 
p= 2 
1− ⋅ v + B0 ⋅ 1 −  − 20 ⋅ 1 − 
3   (7)
v  v ⋅T    v  v  v 
where R, A0, B0, a, b and C are constants.
For nitrogen gas the values are,
R = 296,8 J/(kg K)
A0 = 174,1 Jm3/(kg2)
B0 = 1,801·10-3 m3/kg
a = 9,338·10-4 m3/kg
b = -2,474·10-4 m3/kg
C = 5,095·10-8 m3K3/kg
The used time derivative for the gas temperature is,
dT cˆv T ∂p q 0 (t )
= ⋅ (θ − T ) − ⋅ ⋅ (8)
dt τ w ⋅ c v ( p, T ) c v ( p, T ) ∂T v m
where τw is a thermal time constant and θ the surrounding temperature.

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Derivation of the gas pressure (eq. 7) according to the temperature at a constant gas
volume gives,
∂p R  2C    b 
= ⋅ 1+
2 
⋅ v + B 0 ⋅ 1 −  
3  
(9)
∂T v v  v ⋅T    v 
The B–B Equation gives high accuracy up to a pressure of 25 MPa. For pressure below
25 MPa the pressure and temperature dependent heat capacity, cv(p,T), can be replaced
by a mean value, ĉv.

4.2 Accumulator characteristics

The fact that the main part of the losses in an accumulator belongs to the heat transfer
between the gas and its surroundings, indicates that the most important parameter is the
thermal time constant, τw. From eq. (8) it can be seen that the heat transfer dQ/dt is
modeled as a first order low pass filter as,
dQ
= α ⋅ Ac ⋅ (θ − T ) (10)
dt
with a time constant, which physically can be expressed as,
mg ⋅ cˆv
τw = (11)
α ⋅ Ac
where mg is the gas mass, α is the heat transfer coefficient and Ac the cooling area.
Because of this simplified model the parameters in equation (11) is very hard to define
in a practical application. The only realistic way to evaluate the value of the time
constant is to make measurements.
The round tip efficiency of an accumulator (charging and discharging) is mainly
determined by the thermal losses. This thermal efficiency varies according to the
frequency (fg) of the gas volume changes and the time derivative of the gas volume, as
illustrated in Fig. 14. The lowest efficiency occurs when τw·fg = 1/(2π).

Fig. 14: Thermal efficiency of a 36 liter bladder accumulator versus frequency of the gas volume changes.

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 Compared to the figure above the characteristic of the accumulator has a strong impact
on the overall efficiency for a system with energy recovering capabilities. Therefore, it is
very important to recognize that the accumulator itself is one of the most critical
components in the hydraulic system. Design of accumulators for energy recovering
systems is a delicate optimization problem, which requires a detailed specification of the
working conditions of the system.

5. CONCLUSION
Increased overall system efficiency is of great importance, since this is the way to reduce
the total fuel consumption in mobile machinery. Control strategies also need further
improvements to fully utilize the advantages of hydrostatic systems. Secondary control
can be used for both drive trains and working hydraulics (lifting loads etc.). Brake
energy storage capability in hydraulic accumulators also gives great advantages in
energy reduction. However, the main point is still to find the optimal combination of a
high performance primary engine and a suitable hydrostatic system.
In this paper, it has been proved that hydrostatic systems with valve control and machine
control including energy regeneration have the possibilities to be a very strong
competitor in mobile machinery. Design of energy efficient systems increase the
requirements on controllability of all components used to control the hydrostatic energy
transmission from engine to the load. The control strategy is also a critical part of the
system solution. By using hydraulic accumulators for energy recovering the most critical
issue is the dimensioning of the accumulator. The accumulator has to be optimized
according to the actual working cycle, the system concept in use and the surrounding
temperature.

REFERENCES
[1] Rydberg K-E.: Concepts and Development Trends for Efficiency Improvement of Hydrostatics in Mobile
Applications. SAE Technical Paper –2002-01-1422.
[2] Elfving M: On Fluid Power Control – A Concept for a Distributed Controller of Fluid Power Actuators. Lic
Thesis No. 658, Linköping University, 1997.
[3] Pfaff J L: Distributed Electro-Hydraulic System for Telehandlers. The 50th National Conference on Fluid
Power, Las Vegas, March 16-18, 2005.
[4] Press report DFplus, Bulletin HY11-3291/UK, Parker Hannifin, 2005.
[5] Innas BV, http://www.innas.com/IHT_basic_principle.html.
[6] Werndin R, Palmberg, J-O: Hydraulic Transformers – Comparison of Different Designs, The Eighth
Scandinavian International Conference on Fluid Power, SICFP’03, May 7-9, 2003, Tampere, Finland.
[7] Nyman J.: Modelling Level for Simulation and Design of Fluid Power Systems, Lic Thesis No. 1069,
Linköping University, 2003
[8] Wei S.: On Study of Energy Regeneration System for Hydraulic Manipulators, Dissertation No. 519,
Tampere University of Technology, ISBN 952-15-1292-x, 2004.
[9] Bruun L.: Swedish developed energy saving system in Caterpillars excavators, Fluid Scandinavia, pages 6-9,
No. 2/2002 (in Swedish).
[10] Rydberg K-E.: Gas-Charged Accumulators as Energy Storage Devices in Hydrostatic Drives,
IASTED International Conference on Energy and Environmental Systems EES'84, Nice, France,
June 1984.

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