Katharina Schmitz

Modelling of the influence of entrained and dissolved air on the performance of an oil-hydraulic capacity

Fluids used in fluid power systems to transmit power and energy seldom consist of pure oil due to a large number of impurity sources. Especially impurities in form of air bubbles highly change the system behaviour with respect to stiffness and efficiency. The aim of this paper is to provide a mathematical model to simulate the effect of air on the pressure build-up and release in an oil-hydraulic capacity. Therefore, first a model to calculate the mass transfer between dissolved and entrained air is presented. In the end, the new developed model is validated with measurements.

Online Life Cycle Assessment for Fluid Power Manufacturing Systems – Challenges and Opportunities

Increasing demands for highly flexible production, e.g. mass customization, as well as the production industries’ search for new business models, enabled by big data, pose completely new requirements and challenges for modern components of manufacturing systems. Challenges range from plug and produce to digital twin as well as reconfiguration. To meet the requirements of customers and industry alike, components within a manufacturing line need to be smart to communicate with each other and support the operator during the whole life cycle. In order to optimize the value chain, transparent machine costs as well as the carbon footprint of a component and system are highly relevant. Because of their high power density and controllability, fluid power actuators are prime components in manufacturing systems. In this work, the product life cycle of a modern electro hydraulic actuator for state of the art manufacturing systems is defined. Based on this framework, an assessment is made on state of the art actuators with the focus on life cycle costing and the carbon footprint. Subsequently, requirements for future developments are derived for each part of the product life cycle.

A survey of “Industrie 4.0” in the field of Fluid Power - challenges and opportunities by the example of field device integration

By Vertical Integration, components and IT-Systems of different hierarchy levels are linked together. The classical hierarchy of the automation system pyramid, reaching from the field device to the enterprise systems, gets reduced through a decentralised production network composed of intelligent production units, so called cyber-physical systems (CPS). As the product is choosing its own path through the cyber-physical production system (CPPS), it can be added to the automation system pyramid. “Connected World” is representing outside connections via the internet. /6/