Challenges and solutions for designing Energy-Efficient and Low-Pollutant Machines in Off-Road hydraulics
Damiano Padovani, Pavlos Dimitriou, Tatiana Minav
Abstract
Increasing energy efficiency in off-road hydraulics is an essential requirement mainly achieved by removing functional flow throttling in control valves and enabling energy recovery in hybrid mobile machines. Focusing on hydraulic excavators and wheel loaders gives the greatest benefit due to their widespread use. Thus, we propose a structured survey and a critical review of their energy-efficient systems, including the combustion engine. We address solutions based on proportional valve control that can recover energy, digital valves, displacement control, electro-hydraulic control, and hydraulic transformers. We recall the operating principles and stress both the design challenges and potential of the proposed approaches. Readers get an up-to-date overview of these techniques and their impact on productivity. Our analysis suggests that future trends will typically enable energy efficiency and low-pollution via machine hybridization and strong integration between hydraulics and combustion engines.