Session: Controls 1

Paper Number: 109823

109823 - Impact of Motion Simultaneity in Determination of Design Load Cycles for an Electro-Hydraulic Variable-Speed Drive Network 

When designing and sizing the drive system for a multi-actuator machine controlled by a human driver, the drive system requirements are difficult to define due to the versatile machine usage. It may be most sensible to size the drive system based on measurements from an existing and similar machine in the same size class but with a different drive topology, constituting a load collective. However, this poses two main challenges. First, the measurements likely contain dynamics introduced by disturbances from interactions with the surroundings. Secondly, the measured motion is influenced by the drive characteristics of the test machine as well as "imperfect" driver control of the machine. This paper proposes a method for defining a load collective for design and sizing of a drive network system, aiming to account for the aforementioned properties. The proposed method uses average actuator speeds obtained from measurements which are fed through a simulation model of the machine to obtain smooth actuator forces. Furthermore, two scaling methods are applied to 1) achieve maximum actuator speeds and powers within a load cycle, and 2) achieve maximum actuator forces and powers within a load cycle. This set of averaged measured speeds and simulated forces thus constitute a load collective which reflects the trends in the output work of the drive system, without noise and disturbances which are not related to the function of the drive system and critical for an electro-hydraulic variable-speed drive network, while simultaneity between actuator loads is preserved. The method is applied for the case of a knuckle boom crane, showcasing a significant impact on drive system size, despite achieving specified maximum actuator forces, speeds, and powers, emphasizing the significance of properly defining a load collective when sizing an electro-hydraulic variable-speed drive network.

Presenting Author: Mikkel van Binsbergen-Galàn Aalborg University

Presenting Author Biography: Mikkel van Binsbergen-Galán received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees, both from Aalborg University, Denmark, in 2020 and 2022 respectively, where he is currently working towards the Ph.D. degree at AAU Energy. His research interests are related to design and control of electro-hydraulic drives, actuators and systems, with special focus on electro-hydraulic variable-speed drive technology.