Strategic Control of a Hydraulic Drive System with Accumulator to Enhance Energy Efficiency

Research on energy savings for heavy earth moving machineries (HEMMs) has become increasingly important due to increase in fuel prices and strict environmental regulations. Also, there is a continuous demand for up-gradation for enhanced automation. A hydraulic accumulator is used to improve system performance and make the system smoother. This paper proposes different alternatives of the control algorithms to regulate the fluid flow from an accumulator with an aim to achieve an energy-efficient design. A model is developed using MATLAB-Simscape software, which is validated on a test bench. A comparative study of the proposed hybrid system is made with the traditional one. Compared with the traditional system, the proposed system saves around 46.1% of energy.