Increasing energy efficiency and flow rate regularity in facilities, machinery

and equipment provided with high operating pressure and low flow rate
hydraulic systems

There are plenty of facilities, machinery and equipment, either stationary or

mobile, which require hydraulic operating power, generated by low-flow pumping
systems at high pressures. Such systems can be met in stationary applications, in
which energy efficiency is important, while the pulsating nature of flow does not
disturb, and also in dynamic applications, in which both energy efficiency and flow
rate regularity are important.
The first category of applications includes: static pressure tests on
deepwater drilling pipes, ovens, tanks and pressure vessels, railway and road
tankers; drive of the clamping devices of cutting machines, in which the operations
are performed at different clamping pressure rates on the semi-finished product, and
these rates must be steady throughout the duration of each operation, and so on.
The second category of applications includes: drive of hydraulic cylinders,
with two working speeds on the active stroke, for press machines; drive of hydraulic
cylinders, at low and uniform travel speeds, coupled to high loads; cleaning and
cutting parts by high-pressure water jet, mixed with abrasive material; applications of
mobile hydraulics in the drive systems of construction machinery; drive of hydraulic
tools, and so on.
Hydraulic pressure amplifiers solve the issue of energy efficiency of high
pressure generators at low flow rates, but do not handle the issue of flow regularity.
Hydraulic amplifiers, supplied with high input flow rates at low pressures, provide
pulsating low output flow rates, at high pressures. Even small flow pulsation found in
double action hydraulic amplifiers negatively influences the uniformity of the
hydraulic cylinder travel speed.
High pressure hydrostatic pumps can deliver low and relatively uniform
flow rates at high pressures, but they are expensive and have high energy
consumption.
What we propose, for dynamic applications, is a modular pumping system,
consisting of a low pressure pump, which supplies three hydraulic pressure
amplifiers that differ in working phase, and one of these amplifiers is constantly in the
compression phase.
What we demonstrate, by numerical simulation in AMESim, is that the
proposed pumping system simultaneously solves the issues of energy efficiency and
flow regularity.