In recent years, the interest of industry towards condition-based maintenance, substituting traditional time-based maintenance, is growing. Indeed, condition-based maintenance can increase the system uptime with a consequent economic advantage. In this paper, a solution to detect the health state of a variable displacement axial-piston pump based on vibration signals is proposed. The pump was tested on the test bench in different operating points, both in healthy and faulty conditions, the latter obtained by assembling damaged components in the pump. The vibration signals were acquired and exploited to extract features for fault identification. After the extraction, the obtained features were reduced to decrease the computational effort and used to train different types of classifiers. The classification algorithm that presents the greater accuracy with reduced features was identified. The analysis has also showed that using the time sampling raw signal, a satisfying accuracy could be obtained, which will permit onboard implementation. Results have shown the capability of the algorithm to identify which fault occurred in the system (fault identification) for each working condition. In future works, the classification algorithm will be implemented onboard to validate its effectiveness for the online identification of the typical incipient faults in axial-piston pumps.

With the rising demand for energy efficiency, displacement-controlled or so-called pump-controlled systems have become an attractive research topic for applications in construction machinery and other off-road vehicles. Pump-controlled systems can be implemented with electro-hydrostatic actuators as electro-hydraulic zones, which are located next to the end actuator as a replacement for the traditional valve-controlled hydraulic actuation systems. In this paper a 9-tonne class excavator is utilized as a study case. A mathematical model of the conventional machine, validated with tests carried out on both the excavator and the single hydraulic components, was previously developed within the Simcenter AMESim^© environment. This mathematical model was modified with electric components for simulating a zonal hydraulics excavator and compared with a conventional load sensing (LS) machine. The energy efficiencies of both the LS circuit and the new solution were evaluated for typical duty cycles, pointing out the obtainable energy efficiency improvements, which were mainly due to the absence of the directional valves and pressure compensators. The results also point out the effect of the pipe losses when the circuit layout requires the pipe for connecting the pump with the actuator; moreover, the effect of a diesel engine downsizing on the energy saving was evaluated.

Pressure ripple has always been a major drawback in hydraulic circuits, since it is the main source of the overall noise emitted by the pump. This article presents a theoretical analysis on the active control of the pressure ripple in an axial piston pump by properly moving the swash plate. The reduction of the pressure oscillations is studied in an active way and for this purpose a mathematical model of the whole pump has been developed, focusing on both the fluid dynamic aspects and the component dynamics. An experimental activity has been performed in order to validate the pump mathematical model. The results of the simulation, compared with the experimental data, highlight a suitable capability of the model to predict both the dynamics of the swash plate and the delivery pressure ripple. The validated model has been used for implementing an active control of the pressure ripple with the aim of properly modifying the machine displacement at high frequency in order to vary the instantaneous delivery flow rate and, consequently, the outlet pressure. The control strategy is grounded on moving the swash plate for modifying the motion law of the pistons through a servo valve integrated into the displacement control system. The simulations results have demonstrated that acting on the pump displacement control is possible to considerably reduce the amplitude of the pressure oscillations.

With the increasingly stringent regulations on air quality and the consequent emission limits for internal combustion engines, researchers are concentrating on studying new solutions for improving efficiency and energy saving even in off-road mobile machines. To achieve this task, pump-controlled or displacement-controlled systems have inspired interest for applications in off-road working machines. Generally, these systems are derived from the union of a hydraulic machine coupled to an electric one to create compact components that could be installed near the actuator. The object of study of this work is a 9-ton excavator, whose hydraulic circuit is grounded on load sensing logic. The validated mathematical model, created previously in the Simcenter Amesim© environment, represents the starting point for developing electro-hydraulic solutions. Electric components have been inserted to create different architectures, both with open- and closed-circuit layouts, in order to compare the energy efficiency of the different configurations with respect to the traditional load sensing system. The simulations of a typical working cycle show the energy benefits of electro-hydraulic solutions that allow for drastically reducing the mechanical energy required by the diesel engine and, consequently, the fuel consumption. This is mainly possible because of the elimination of directional valves and pressure compensators, which are necessary in a load sensing circuit, but are also a source of great energy dissipations. The results show that closed-circuit solutions produce the greatest benefits, with higher energy efficiencies than the open-circuit solution. Furthermore, closed-circuit configurations require fewer components, allowing for more compact and lighter solutions, as well as being cheaper.

In any hydraulic machine there are lubricated couplings that could become critical beyond certain operating conditions. This paper presents the simulation results concerning textured surfaces with the aim of improving the performance of lubricated couplings in relative motion. The texturing design requires much care to obtain good improvements, and it is essential to analyze both the geometric features of the dimples and the characteristics of the coupled surfaces, like the sliding velocity and gap height. For this purpose, several CFD simulations have been performed to study the behavior of the fluid bounded in the coupling, considering dimples with different shapes, size, and spatial distribution. The simulations consider the onset of gaseous cavitation to evaluate the influence of this phenomenon on the pressure distribution generated by the textured surface. The analyses have pointed out that it is critical to correctly predict the behavior of the textured surface in the presence of local cavitation, in fact, when cavitation occurs, the characteristic time of the transient in which the phase of the fluid change is very rapid and it is comparable to the time taken by the fluid to move from one dimple to the next.

Cavitation can occur at the inlet of hydraulic pumps or in hydraulic valves; this phenomenon should be always avoided because it can generate abnormal wear and noise in fluid power components. Numerical modeling of the cavitation is widely used in research, and it allows the regions where it occurs more to be predicted. For this reason, two different approaches to the study of gas and vapor cavitation were presented in this paper. In particular, a model was developed using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method with particular attention to the dynamic modeling of both gaseous and vapor cavitation. A further lumped parameter model was made, where the fluid density varies as the pressure decreases due to the release of air and the formation of vapor. Furthermore, the lumped parameter model highlights the need to also know the speed of sound in the vena contracta, since it is essential for the correct calculation of the mass flow during vaporization. A test bench for the study of cavitation with an orifice was set up; cavitation was induced by increasing the speed of the fluid on the restricted section thanks to a pump located downstream of the orifice. The experimental data were compared with those predicted by CFD and lumped parameter models.