Automation in Construction 19 (2010) 1016–1026

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Automation in Construction
j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / a u t c o n

Research on the energy regeneration systems for hybrid hydraulic excavators

Tianliang Lin ⁎, Qingfeng Wang, Baozan Hu, Wen Gong
The State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power Transmission and Control, Zhejiang University, 310027 Hangzhou, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper deals with the method of how to regenerate the potential energy for a hybrid hydraulic excavator
Accepted 6 August 2010 (HHE). After studying the structure and working cycle of the HHE, two energy regeneration systems are
considered. Then, the control strategy and parameter matching for the proposed energy regeneration system
Keywords: (ERS) are discussed. United simulations with AMEsim and MATLAB/simulink for the conventional control
Hybrid system
system and two ERSs are carried out in this paper. An estimated 41% of the total potential energy could be
Excavator
Energy regeneration system
regenerated at the lowering of the boom in accumulator-motor-generator system while the recovery
Energy saving efficiency in the motor-generator system is only about 17%, and it is also shown that the accumulator-motor-
generator energy regeneration system (AMGERS) features better speed control of the boom and response
characteristics than the motor-generator energy regeneration system (MGERS), hence, the AMGERS is a good
configuration for the HHE at present.
© 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction hydraulic energy in crane's hydraulic system. When the crane

Following the “energy crisis”, the demand for more environmental
and fuel efficient construction machinery, especially for hydraulic
excavator, has been increased in response to growing concerns on the
clean environment and saving energy.
Most of the time, in a typical working cycle, the weight of the boom
itself is much heavier than the load. When the load goes down it does
not need energy, but energy losses rise up in breaking the load motion.
The gravitational potential energy is dissipated into heat in the control
valves of the hydraulic system. So it is required for us to make
maximum use of regenerative energy for further improvement of fuel
consumption and also to ensure higher system control performance
equivalent to that of conventional control system. The successful
application of hybrid system in construction machinery provides a
new way for hydraulic excavator to achieve energy saving [1–4].
A lot of researches have been reported in the field of energy
regeneration systems of construction machinery. Andersen et al. [5]
studied an ERS in hydraulic forklift trucks. They concentrated on
energy recovery in the main lift system with electric motor and
batteries. They compared different systems and control strategies, and
the results showed improved energy efficiency but with shorter life
time of the components because of the system's oscillatory response.
But the time for the down movement of the boom is about 9 s and
most of the time, the velocity of the boom is constant.
Liang, Sun and Virvalo [6–10] studied the energy recovery system
with a hydraulic accumulator that could save and restore the
comes down with load, the accumulator is charged and the potential
energy of the crane and load is saved in the form of hydraulic energy.
Then, when the crane arm goes up, the saved energy can be reutilized.
Although energy recovery applications are widely used in industry,
only a few energy recovery systems have been developed for the
hydraulic excavator. Bruun [11] presented an application called “Eco
Mate” based on a hydraulic accumulator ER system and installed it
onto a 50 ton hydraulic excavator. The “Eco Mate” system is said to be
one of the most successful inventions to recover energy on the
hydraulic boom-control system in recent years [12,13].
Applying the ERS, working cycle should be considered. Both the
recovery time for the hydraulic forklift and the crane are around 10 s,
while it is only 2–3 s in excavator, hence, the ERS used in hydraulic
forklift trucks or in cranes cannot be used directly for HHE. However
there is not a systematic study on the ERS in hydraulic excavators and
the question which ERS configuration is better for HHE is still unsolved.
This paper aims to solve these problems and tries to find a better ERS
for HHE. A 7-ton hydraulic excavator is the object for this research.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 gives
energy regeneration methods for HHE in details. Section 3 shows
procedures of how to choose the power components. Simulations and
results of comparing and analyzing are described in Sections 4 and 5.
Concluding remarks are presented in Section 6.
2. Energy regeneration methods for HHEs
2.1. Structure of the HHE

⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: + 86 571 87951314 8108; fax: + 86 571 87951941. The structure of the HHE is shown in Fig. 1, the engine and electric
E-mail address: ltlkxl@163.com (T. Lin). motor drive the hydraulic pump in a parallel hybrid style. The

0926-5805/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.autcon.2010.08.002
 T. Lin et al. / Automation in Construction 19 (2010) 1016–1026 1017

Fig. 2. Regenerative power of the boom of the 7-ton hydraulic excavator in digging
working condition.

actuators at the same time is adopted in traditional hydraulic

Fig. 1. Structure of the hybrid hydraulic excavator.
common characteristics about the HHE can be summarized as: due to
the large mass associated with the boom, when actuators go down,
the gravitational potential energy and inertial energy that are
dissipated into heat in the control valves are not easy to be
regenerated in conventional hydraulic excavator. But for the HHE,
there is a possibility to utilize the gravitational potential energy. It can
use a battery or a capacitor to store the potential energy when the
boom goes down. For example, employing a motor and a generator
connected to the meter-out port of control valve is one solution to this
problem. The gravitational potential energy can be utilized and
converted into electric energy in the HHE.
2.2. Working style
Applying the ERS in the HHE, the system has to be considered to fit
its special working style. In general, a typical digging working cycle in
material handling is gripping the load, lifting the load up and swinging
to a lorry, releasing the load, and driving back down to the next load.
In this research, a 7-ton hydraulic excavator was tested and the data of
the pressure of the cylinder raw chamber, the pressure of the cylinder
rod chamber, the outlet pressure of the pump and the displacement of
cylinder rod were collected. Then, we caculated the theoretical
regenerated energy of the boom, the arm, the bucket and the swing.
As shown in Table 1, the boom cylinder has a regenerated energy
of 86,403 J, which covers 67% of the total regenerated energy, and 39%
of the energy is converted from the gravitational potential energy. For
the sake of low cost, the system that one pump drives several
excavators. Hence, even when the boom goes down, the pressure of
the cylinder rod chamber is not near zero, and if we adopt a separate
driving system, which means the boom is driven by one separated
pump, then only the energy that is converted from the boom
gravitational energy can be regenerated. Hence, the ERS proposed in
this paper mainly focuses on the boom's potential energy.
Fig. 2 illustrates the regeneration power of the boom of a 7-ton
class hydraulic excavator. It can be seen that the time for regenerating
energy is only about 2–3 s while a typical working period is about
20 s. Moreover, the regeneration power changes quickly and
periodically. It can be concluded from Fig. 3 that there is no stable
process during the lowering of the boom.
2.3. Configurations of ERS
With a battery or a capacitor in the HHE, there is a new way to
regenerate the energy. In our prior research, we have proposed a
MGERS, which is shown in Fig. 4. We employ a hydraulic motor and a
generator connected to the meter-out port of control valve to convert
the gravitational potential energy into electric energy, which can be
used for the later hybrid power system. The main problems of the
MGERS are shown as follows:
• How to regenerate the energy in this kind of load change is an
essential problem. For an excavator, the lowering of the boom only
takes about 2–3 s. As a battery stores energy by chemical reactions,
it will generally take much longer to recharge and the battery
cannot regenerate the energy in such a short time. It is possible to
use supercapacitor to restore the energy, but increasing the cost.

Table 1
The proportion of the theoretical regeneration energy for each actuator.

Actuators Regenerated energy J The proportion %

Boom Potention energy 49,205 39

Others 37,198 28
Arm 17,500 13
Bucket 123 1
Swing 24,513 19
Fig. 3. The trajectory profile for position, velocity, and acceleration.
1018 T. Lin et al. / Automation in Construction 19 (2010) 1016–1026
Fig. 4. Schematic of the motor-generator energy regeneration system.
• Such large and frequent changes of load power make it work in a
serious condition. Even though we use the supercapacitor to restore
the enery, how to guarantee its life remains a big problem.
• How to control the actuators in quick and precise responses under
energy regeneration control. If the boom velocity is controlled by
the motor and the generator, then, the damping changes, hence,
how to obtain the same control performance is a key problem.
As the hydraulic accumulator systems have an order of magnitude
advantage in terms of the power density over electric system, hydraulic
accumulator energy recovery systems are ideal for those confronted with
frequent and short start–stop cycles in enough spaces. But the major
disadvantage of a hydraulic accumulator is that the energy storage
density is severely limited relative to other competing technologies. The
key problem for hybrid excavators is to find storage space for the energy
storage components. Both of the battery and hydraulic accumulator are
not suitable to be used as the energy accumulator in the ERS of the
hydraulic excavator. Hence, in this paper, an energy recovery system that
combines the advantages of an electric and hydraulic accumulator is
proposed in Fig. 5, the advantages are as follows:
• When the boom goes down, the gravitational potential energy can
be converted into both the electric energy and the hydraulic energy.
The time for regenerating the energy can been considerably
improved from 2 s to 20 s depending on the control strategy.
• As the hydraulic accumulator can quickly store the energy, the change
rate and amplitude of the charging current are much smaller. Hence,
we can use a battery instead of a capacitor even if the recovery time is
short.
3. Power component design
A conventional 7-ton class hydraulic excavator for experiment has
been used in our lab. The main parameters of the conventional
hydraulic excavator related to this paper are listed as follows:
• The maximum volume flow required in the boom cylinder is 200 L/min;
• When the boom goes down, oil volume released from the raw
chamber of the boom cylinder is about 7 L;
• The total regenerated energy of the boom cylinder is about 49,205 J.
In an excavator, the joysticks are the most common interfaces
between the drivers and hydraulic manipulators. The boom speed is
the control target which is compared with the joystick command
through a conversion gain. However, most of the hydraulic booms are
open-loop control as there are no sensors assembled in the
excavators. In order to make for the driver a same sensing of boom
cylinder moving speed comparing with the conventional hydraulic
excavator, a control strategy is necessary. There are two goals of
control strategy. One is to improve the recovery efficiency, ensuring
the distribution of the working points of the motor and the generator
in or near its high efficiency area. The other is to guarantee the control
performance.
3.1. Control strategy
3.1.1. The MGERS
For the hybrid power system controller, the dynamic-work-point
control strategy reported in Ref. [1] is used. As for MGERS, two
 T. Lin et al. / Automation in Construction 19 (2010) 1016–1026
Fig. 5. Schematic of the accumulator-motor-generator regeneration system.
different approaches have been tried out in a simulation model to
investigate which strategy works better. The input signal and the
output signal are shown in Fig. 4 and these two strategies are:
1) strategy 1—without the throttle control
In this strategy, when the boom goes up, the valve orifice is
continuously controlled. On the contrary, the valve orifice is fully
opened during the lowering of the boom, and the generator is used as
a unique active damper, with the purpose to control the boom
lowering velocity. The aim of this strategy is to measure the speed of
the generator, which is analogous to the boom velocity. The error
between the desired generator speed and current speed will be input
to a proportional–integral (PI) controller to generate a voltage control
signal which is sent to the inverter to adjust the generator speed or
the boom velocity, see Fig. 6.
2) strategy 2—with the throttle control
The control strategy diagram is presented in Fig. 7. When the boom
goes up, the strategy is the same as strategy 1, and when the boom
goes down, the valve orifice is still continuously controlled. Both the
generator and the proportional directional valve are used to control
the boom lowering velocity. The goal with this strategy is to control
the flow rate through the proportional directional valve which is
analogous to the boom velocity. Measuring the pressure p1, p2 and
calculating the restriction area of the valve from a control signal c1 and
the table that indicates the relationship between the control signal
and the restriction area, The error between the desired flow rate and
actual flow rate will be input to a speed PI controller to generate a
voltage control signal which is sent to the proportional directional
valve and then adjust the boom velocity.
1019
3.1.2. The AMGERS
For the AMGERS, the control strategy is illustrated in Fig. 8. The
input signal and the output signal are shown in Fig. 5 and the control
strategy is based on following logics.
Step 1: Based on a joystick command, the target flow Qt is obtained
from a suitable gain and sent to the controller as a reference speed.
And the actual flowQb is calculated as:
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Q b = kc1 ðp1 −p2 Þ ð1Þ
Where c1 is the control signal of the proportional directional valve,
p1 is the pressure of port A of the proportional directional valve, p2 is
the pressure of port T of the proportional directional valve, and k is
transfer coefficient.
Step 2: In order to ensure that the cylinder can follow the desired
speed, a PI controller is applied to control the boom velocity. The error
between the desired flow rate and the actual flow rate is used as an input
signal to the PI controller, and then the output signal of the controller is
sent to the proportional directional valve to adjust the boom velocity.
Step 3: According to the efficiency map of the hydraulic motor and
generator, we set the pressure pc that guarantees the working points
of the hydraulic motor and the generator distributing at the high
efficient area.
Step 4: Then, if the pressure p2 N pc, the generator works at a
constant speed of 1500 rpm, else the generator doesn't work.
3.2. Parameter matching
3.2.1. MGERS
Based on the structure of the MGERS proposed in Fig. 4, the
components are chosen to satisfy the working requirements.
1020 T. Lin et al. / Automation in Construction 19 (2010) 1016–1026
Fig. 6. Overview of strategy 1 applied to the MGERS.
Firstly, the generator is selected from the relation between the
regeneration power and the time of the 7-ton hydraulic excavator as
plotted in Fig. 2. Neglecting the loss energy in the hydraulic pipe and
the hydraulic motor, the maximum required power is about 35 kW
and the average power is at around 25 kW. As the demand for the
generator is small size, lightweight, the speed of generator cannot be
set too low to improve the specific power. Moreover, the maximum
speed of the generator should not be allowed to exceed the maximum
rpm limit caused by the noise of the hydraulic motor without
reduction gear box. Hence, the maximum speed can be set at
2000 rpm and the base speed can be 1500 rpm.
For the capacitor, the specifications and setting parameters
reported in Ref. [14] are used. Next, according to the maximum flow
rate and the maximum rotational speed of the generator, we can
choose the displacement of the hydraulic motor of 100 mL/r. And the
other hydraulic components are chosen to ensure the operation of the
boom system. The specifications and setting parameters for the
MGERS are listed in Table 2.
3.2.2. AMGERS
After analyzing the load chart of power requirements in a working
cycle, as plotted in Fig. 2, as well as the control strategy, conclusions can
be drawn that the rating power of the generator could be downsized
from 25 kW to 5 kW, since it only provides the average power and the
recovery time can be set at around 10 s. The rating speed is about
1500 rpm because the generator works at 1500 rpm under the control
strategy. Then, the maximum speed can be set at 2000 rpm.
However, there is one possibility that the accumulator cannot
regenerate the energy if the pressure in the accumulator is higher
than its maximum working pressure, so all of the energy must been
regenerated by the generator. Considering the economics, we can
make a tradeoff that if the accumulator cannot regenerate the energy,
60% of the potential energy should be recovered by the generator in
3 s, hence, the maximum power of the generator is about 10 kW.
Then, for an ideal case, in one cycle, all of hydraulic oil of 7 L is
flowing to oil tank within 10 s, hence, the displacement of HM can be
set at 40 mL/r since the working speed is 1500 rpm.
As the hydraulic accumulator plays a very important role in the
AMGERS, it must be properly designed to offset the gap between the
load power and the generator power input. Its selection should consider
economics, weight saving, installation and controllability. A bladder
accumulator has been chosen in this project because it responds fast
enough, which is important in the control of a hydraulic boom.
The charge pressure and the working pressure are the key factors
that have a direct effect on the energy recovery system.
If the pressure of the raw chamber of the boom cylinder and the gas
pressure in the hydraulic accumulator are too high, the lowering
velocity cannot reach the maximum velocity of the boom at the
 T. Lin et al. / Automation in Construction 19 (2010) 1016–1026 1021

Fig. 7. Overview of strategy 2 applied to the MGERS.

lowering stage of the boom. If the pressure is too low, the deceleration For hybrid excavators, the key problem is to find storage space for the
is too low to stop the boom at the decelerating lowering stage. energy storage components. Hence, we should try to obtain the
Considering the working efficiency, the time for the lowering of the maximum energy density per volume. The change in its internal
boom in ERS must not be longer than that in the conventional control energy and the Boyle's law can be described as:
system. According to the pressure of the raw chamber of the boom
cylinder in actual working cycle plotted in Fig. 9, it can be recognized as: P2 V2 −P1 V1 V −rV1
E= = p2 2 ; ð4Þ
1−n 1−n
p1 ≤2:5 Mpa; ð2Þ
P1
r= ; ð5Þ
p2 ≥6 Mpa; ð3Þ P2

n n
Where p1 is the minimum pressure of the hydraulic accumulator P1 V1 = P2 V2 ð6Þ
and p2 is the maximum pressure of the hydraulic accumulator.
The main demerit of the hydraulic accumulator is that the energy Where V1 is the gas volume under the gas pressure P1, V2 is the gas
density is severely limited relative to other competing technologies. volume under the gas pressure P2, and n is Polytrophic exponent. In
1022 T. Lin et al. / Automation in Construction 19 (2010) 1016–1026

Fig. 8. Overview of the strategy applied to the AMGERS.

our research, n can be set at 1.4 because the time for the lowering of by differentiating the above equation with respect to the pressure
the boom is short. Therefore, the energy density per volume can be ratio as follows:
formulated with respect to the ratio of the maximum pressure to the
minimum pressure. dðEv Þ
= 0; ð8Þ
dr
1
r −r
n
Ev = p2 ; ð7Þ
1−n

The maximum conversion efficiency can be achieved at the

condition of having an optimum pressure ratio, which is determined

Table 2
The specifications and setting parameters of the MGERS.

Parameters Values

Generator Rating power 25 kW

Maximum power 35 kW
Base speed 1500 rpm
Maximum speed 2000 rpm
Hydraulic motor Displacement 100 mL/r
Capacitor Rating capacity 7.5 F
Working voltage 0–400 V
Fig. 9. The pressure of the raw chamber of the boom cylinder.
 T. Lin et al. / Automation in Construction 19 (2010) 1016–1026 1023

Table 3 conventional control system, the MGERS and the AMGERS are
The specifications and parameters of the AMGERS. constructed by AMESim software that are shown in Figs. 10, 11 and
Parameters Values 12, which are converted to Simulink S-Functions. The S-Functions can
then be imported into Simulink and used within a Simulink system
Generator Rating power 5 kW
Maximum power 10 kW just like any other S-Functions. The control strategies based on Figs. 6,
Base speed 1500 rpm 7 and 8 are modeled in MATLAB.
Maximum speed 2000 rpm
Hydraulic motor Displacement 40 mL/r
5. Results of comparison and analysis
Capacitor Rating capacity 7.5 F
Working voltage 0–400 V
Hydraulic accumulator Gas rated volume 10 L The results of the MGERS and the AMGRS are presented and the
Initial gas pressure 2 Mpa comparison was made in this section. The conventional control
system is used for comparison. The following assumptions are set in
order to compare and analyze conveniently:
Accordingly, the maximum energy density based on the optimum
pressure ratio can be represented in the following form: • Boom cylinder has the same start/end point and displacements.
• If operation of the ERS is similar to the conventional control system
n
r = n1−n = 0:308; ð9Þ about sensing of the driver, we can say the control performance is
good.
On the basis of the control strategy, the pressure of the
accumulator is equal to the inlet pressure of the hydraulic motor, 5.1. Control performance
and in order to make the working points of the hydraulic motor and
the generator distribute in high efficiency area, the minimum working For a hydraulic excavator, control performance is a very important
pressure should be greater than some value. From the above character for the energy regeneration equipment. In order to show its
constraints, we can achieve the minimum working pressure, the control performance, we evaluate the performance by the equivalence
maximum working pressure and the initial gas pressure as follows: between the ERS and the conventional control system.
To investigate the effect of using MGERS in the HHE, the MGERS
p1 = 2:5 Mpa ð10Þ model has been tested with two control strategies. As shown in
Fig. 13, the boom speed controlled by MGERS under strategy 2
p1
p2 = = 8:11 Mpa ð11Þ oscillates very much at around 10 s. The reason is that when the
r joystick gives a down-moving command at 10 sec, the pressure of the
p0 = 0:8p1 = 2 Mpa ð12Þ hydraulic motor and the proportional directional valve is at a rather
low level. In the MGERS under the strategy 1, the proportional
directional valve orifice is fully open, and the boom velocity is
Then, the gas volume of the accumulator can be calculated. In the
controlled by adjusting the speed of the generator, hence, the boom
whole stage of the lowering of the boom, some of the oil is discharged
will drop suddenly with big oscillations, which can be seen in Fig. 13.
by the hydraulic motor:
The boom velocity oscillates very much during downward movement.
ΔV The reason for the oscillation is that the hydraulic motor and
ΔV0 = t = 2:1 L; ð13Þ
ttotal 1

Where ΔV is the total oil volume discharged by hydraulic motor,

ttotal is the total time for the hydraulic motor discharging the oil, and t1
is the time for the boom lowering. Then, the volume of the oil
discharged by the accumulator at the lowering of the boom can be
calculated by the following equation:

ΔV1 = ΔV −ΔV0 = 4:9 L ð14Þ

Therefore, the gas volume of the accumulator is formulated with

respect to the pressure of hydraulic accumulator and the oil volume
charged by accumulator.
 
P1 1n
P0
V0 = ΔV1   = 10 L ð15Þ
P 1
1− 1 n
P2

Hence, the specifications and setting parameters for the AMGERS

are listed in Table 3.

4. United simulation on the ERS

In order to verify the control performance and the recovery

efficiency of the proposed ERS, simulations have been carried out by
the united simulation with AMESim software version 4.2.1 and
MATLAB software version 7.1. With the AMESim software version
4.2.1 and MATLAB software version 7.1 interface, the model of the Fig. 10. AMESim model for the conventional control system.
1024 T. Lin et al. / Automation in Construction 19 (2010) 1016–1026

Fig. 11. AMESim model for the MGERS.

generator have too small damping. Another reason might be that
dynamic responses of the hydraulic motor and generator are not quick
enough to cancel these oscillations and the recovery time depends on
the time constant of the hydraulic motor and the generator. The boom
velocity drop appears dramatic to the conventional control system
and it may influences the drivers' feeling of the performance, hence,
the MGERS under the strategy 1 without the orifice control is of no
concern.
In order to improve the performance, the paper proposes a
strategy 2 that the valve orifice is still continuously controlled for the
MGERS. It has been proved that the drop is not a bit, but there is still
an obvious oscillation. The recovery time is about 1 s, whereas only

Fig. 12. AMESim model for the AMGERS.

 T. Lin et al. / Automation in Construction 19 (2010) 1016–1026
Fig. 13. The boom velocity curve under different control system (at time = 10 s, joystick
gives a down-moving command).
Fig. 14. The boom velocity curve under different control system (at time = 15 s,
FL = 10,000 N).
0.24 s in conventional control system. The speed of the boom is not
stable enough so it is difficult to make the boom stop at a given place.
But as for the AMGERS, the boom velocity trajectory is almost as the
same as the conventional control system, which makes the similar
feeling for the driver.
As shown in Fig. 14, the oscillations during 15–20 s are caused by
adding the load 10,000 N on the boom's end at the time of 15 s, It can
be seen that the MGERS with strategy 1 cannot effectively exclude the
influence of the disturbance because the error of the MGERS with
strategy 1 is greater than 0.02 m/s, and it cannot help, and must co-
work with the throttle control, which is used in strategy 2, to enhance
the control performance further. Comparing the result, it can be
observed that the AMGERS outperforms the MGERS under strategy 1
because the maximum velocity-tracking error is almost reduced and
bounded within 0.012 m/s, the same velocity-tracking error results
can be obtained in conventional control system and the MGERS under
strategy 2.
Comparing the waveforms in Fig. 14, the AMGERS decreases the
boom velocity error within 0.13 s, whereas the MGERS under strategy
2 decreases the error within 0.25 s and it takes about 0.25 s for
Fig. 15. The joystick command sign.
1025
Fig. 16. The load force sign.
Fig. 17. The rotational speed, torque and the regeneration power of the generator under
the MGERS with strategy 1.
conventional control system to reduce the error, worse, the MGERS
under strategy 1 can hardly diminish the error.
Hence, it can be concluded that the AMGERS attains better tracking
performance upon the desired trajectory than the MGERS, even
though the influence of the unbalance load occurs during the
lowering.
5.2. Regeneration efficiency
One objective of the simulation is to determine how much energy
can be stored by the ERS. In order to answer this question, a proper
working cycle should be chosen. In this study, the input parameters
for the models are joystick command and loading force attached to the
piston rod (FL). These input data were obtained from a real
experiment. The experimental joystick command and load force are
shown in Figs. 15 and 16.
As shown in Fig. 17, the time for lowering the boom is only about
3 s, at the initial down movement, the boom velocity accelerates,
because the response of the hydraulic motor and generator is more
quick than the hydraulic pressure in the volume between the control
valve and the hydraulic motor, so the pressure of the inlet of the
Fig. 18. The rotational speed, torque and the regeneration power of the generator under
the AMGERS.
1026 T. Lin et al. / Automation in Construction 19 (2010) 1016–1026
Fig. 19. Comparison of the regeneration energy between the MGERS and the AMGERS.
hydraulic motor is rather low, hence, only at the deceleration down
movement could the energy be regenerated. This would make the
actual recovery time be shorter, which is about 1.5 s. Then, the energy
must be regenerated by the hydraulic motor and electric generator in
so short a time, the boom velocity is controlled by the hydraulic
motor, so the speed of the generator is distributing at large range, and
the efficiency of the generator is very low.
As shown in Fig. 18, with a hydraulic accumulator, the recovery
time can reach to 10 s, even can be longer, and the generator works at
a constant speed, which makes the generator working points
distribute at high efficient area. Fig. 19 shows the energy regenerated
by the two ERS. The MGERS has an energy recovery of 8500 J when
lowering the boom and the energy regenerated in the AMGERS is
about 20,000 J, which might seem a bit improvement in regeneration
efficiency. From section 3, we have known that the hybrid excavator
has obtained a potential energy of 49,205 J, then, by subtracting the
regenerated energy from the total potential energy, the recovery
efficiency of AMGERS has though been considerably improved by 41%,
whereas only 17% can be regenerated in MGERS under strategy 2.
6. Conclusions and future work
The concepts of the energy regeneration system based on the HHE,
MGERS and AMGERS have been presented in this paper. Based on the
proposed ERS, the control strategies and the parameter matching are
developed. The dynamic model of the conventional control system,
the MGERS and the AMGERS are created by AMESim software and
MATLAB software. Simulation results show that it is possible to
increase the efficiency of the generator and downsize the generator
with the hydraulic accumulator in the AMGERS, and it is evident that
the AMGERS has obvious advantage over the MGERS in the
improvement of the control performance.
It is expected that the experimental study on the control strategies
for the MGERS and the AMGERS will be done in out rig. Also, we will
develop the key components. In particular, the motor and the
generator with high efficiency and small volume will be developed.
Acknowledgement
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of
National Natural Science Foundation of China (Granted NO.
50875233), State 863 project (Granted NO. 2009AA044402) and
“985 Project” of China. This work also has been supported by Hitachi
Construct Machine Co. Ltd.
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