By alloying electronics and hydraulics, manufacturers are producing ever-smarter compact excavator systems, a trend likely to accelerate. The challenge is marrying the efficiency that electronics can bring without losing the feel customers want. The electronic interface with hydraulics already is making things easier.
Operators can adjust flow rates for attachments, switch work tools and change the control pattern, all without leaving the comfort of the seat. However, as hydraulic systems grow more sophisticated, they also simply grow. A raised hood on an excavator exposes banks of black hoses exiting pumps and heading off in all directions to power machine travel, boom swing, arm movement and attachment functions. How a designer arranges the lines — minimizing right angles and other flow choke points — helps determine the efficiency of the hydraulic system.
This is why our engineering team considers hose layout and routing in their design requirements. Ultimately, some of the fluid is pumped from under the hood into the metal piping and flexible lines running the length of a boom and arm. Dedicated hydraulic lines for the pistons moving the arm and bucket sometimes are protectively channeled through the framework of the boom; auxiliary lines for attachments more often are affixed to the side of boom and arm, with fast couplings at the working end.
Have sophisticated hydraulics opened the way for more excavator attachments? He cites popular excavator attachments such as rotating and tilting couplers, mowers, mulchers and brush cutters. Some tools are complex and tax a hydraulic system more than others. A thumb on a bucket, for instance, requires minimal hydraulic pressure or flow and connections are easily made.
Sometimes more than one auxiliary line is required, as when an attachment requires double-action hydraulic cylinders and variable flow. So for example, if you wanted to equip an excavator with a felling head, which has a high pressure and flow demand, you would need to combine flow from multiple pumps.
That produces the speed to turn the cutting wheel and the power to cut through a tree. Whereas if you had sufficient flow but not enough pressure, the cutting wheel would spin fast but as soon as it hit the tree, it would stop. Hydraulics reduce downtime right up front by speeding the tool attachment process.
The second cylinder, which powered the crowd function, is barely visible inside the boom between the hoist cylinder and the boom tip. Hydraulics are Becoming Smarter and More Interconnected.
The First Modern Motor Grader. John Deere Electric Backhoe Concept Demonstrates Performance Benefits for Construction Industry The X Tier concept machine is designed to offer lower operating costs and noise, improving overall productivity for customers.
Becky Schultz. Jessica Lombardo. Sara Jensen. Overcoming Pre-Compensated Work Function Valve Instability New pre-compensated valve technology has brought increased pre-compensated flow control stability to the mobile equipment market. Randy Bobbitt. Fluid Power. Danfoss - Danfoss Power Solutions. Hallite Opens New Global Test Facility The facility combines laboratory and product testing space previously housed in separate buildings and is equipped for a wide range of material and product characterization.
Hallite Seals Americas Inc. Pressure to Reduce Emissions and Labor Shortages are Two Biggest Drivers of Change Reducing emissions and overcoming labor shortages will push the heavy equipment industry to find innovative technologies and solutions.
Poclain Hydraulics Inc. Bosch Rexroth Corporation. Danfoss and Eaton Merger Aims to Advance Hydraulics Technology Bringing together the hydraulics knowledge of these two companies will help with development of new products and technologies. And, as the technology continued to mature, hydraulics also made it possible to achieve far more precise motions as evidenced by modern videos showing excavator teeth being used to remove the lid on a bottle.
Such precision has allowed for more optimization of certain construction processes, such as grading roads and excavating construction sites. When it comes to the use of hydraulics in construction, we automatically think of big machines: excavators, shovels, bulldozers, backhoes, and massive cranes. However, those are not the only machines where hydraulic systems are crucial.
There are scissor lifts, trenchers, concrete pumping systems, hydraulic support cylinders, and even brick molding machines that all depend on hydraulics for their operation. One of the key benefits of hydraulic machinery is the ability to achieve motion via hydraulic actuators such as cylinders and swing motors.
Through the use of multiple actuators, extremely complex motions are made possible. And with hydraulics providing the power behind these motions, machines like excavators can dig deeply into the earth or front loaders can scoop, lift up, and deposit heavy loads of soil or rock. And hydraulics, coupled with a skilled operator, can achieve motion to an amazing degree of precision.
Modern graders with hydraulic systems are capable of far greater accuracy than their cable, winch, and linkage operated ancestors. And when hydraulics are combined with modern technology such as grade control, laser positioning, and GPS, the potential seems almost endless. The United States has already seen self-operating compact track loaders made by Built Robotics at work on commercial work sites in California.
When you see a massive excavator lumbering slowly across a construction site or perhaps a small skid steer loader rolling quickly by with a load of damp sand in its bucket, you might be surprised to learn that they are both propelled by the same kind of power: hydraulic power. The vast majority of equipment found on construction sites across the world is propelled by hydraulic power.
That includes hydraulic final drive motors that convert hydraulic power to torque to enable track loaders, bulldozers, diggers, and backhoes to carry or push heavy loads. These motors, which are sometimes referred to as track motors, enable tracked excavators, bulldozers, and other tracked machines to keep moving across some of the most difficult surfaces imaginable. Hydraulic wheel motors are also indispensable for wheeled machines, such as skid steer loaders, wheeled excavators, backhoes, and even forklifts.
If you have ever watched a hydraulic excavator utilize a set of hydraulically powered jaws to chew through scrap sheet metal or concrete, you understand the power and functionality that hydraulics has made available to attachments.
And these powerful attachments are not just for massive excavators, but for small machines such as skid steer loaders and compact track loaders. These hydraulic attachments can perform an almost unimaginable assortment of tasks, including:. And this list does not even include the wide variety of buckets on the market including stump buckets and skeleton buckets, rock buckets, ditch cleaning buckets, side discharge buckets, and excavator buckets with hydraulic thumbs.
0コメント