Abstract
High power density, good controllability, and low cost are the most appealing characteristics that make hydraulic systems the best choice for many applications. Current state-of-the-art hydraulic variable displacement pumps show high efficiency at high displacement while they have poor efficiencies at low displacement. This paper proposes a novel alternating flow (AF) variable displacement hydraulic pump to: 1) eliminate metering losses by acting as a high-bandwidth pump for displacement control; 2) achieve high efficiency across a wide range of operating conditions and displacements; and 3) allow multiple units to be easily common-shaft mounted for a compact multi-actuator displacement control system from a single prime mover. A dynamic model using first principles describes the cylinder pressure, flows between pairs of cylinders, and net inlet and outlet flows as a function of the pumps phase-shift angle. The model captures hydraulic check valve dynamics, the effective bulk modulus, leakage flows, and viscous friction. Piston kinematics and dynamics are discussed and energy loss models are presented. A first prototype of the AF pump was constructed from two inline triplex pumps that were modified so that three piston pairs were created. Experiment tests were conducted and used to validate the model. After model validation, simulation results from the model can offer an initial evaluation of this novel pump concept and potential applications and can be used to guide the design for future prototype of the AF hydraulic pump.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 8672476 |
Pages (from-to) | 1294-1305 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics |
Volume | 24 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jun 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Manuscript received February 6, 2018; revised August 3, 2018; accepted March 17, 2019. Date of publication March 21, 2019; date of current version June 14, 2019. Recommended by Technical Editor Prof. H. Moon. This work was supported by the Center for Compact and Efficient Fluid Power (CCEFP) under NSF Grant 0540834 with funding from the National Fluid Power Association (NFPA) Education and Technology Foundation. (Corresponding author: Eric John Barth.) M. Li and E. J. Barth are with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37235 USA (e-mail:,mengtang. li@vanderbilt.edu; eric.j.barth@vanderbilt.edu).
Publisher Copyright:
© 1996-2012 IEEE.
Keywords
- Alternating flow (AF) hydraulics
- modeling and validation
- variable displacement pump