Fundamentals of !

Fluid Power

Week Six Homework Problems

1. What is an accumulator precharge? Why is it necessary?

2. Accumulators have high power density, but low energy density. What does this
mean? Compare or contrast this characteristic with electric batteries.
3. Develop an equation to describe the energy of an accumulator per unit volume
(Hint: the energy of the accumulator is contained in the gas and the oil, making
the appropriate normalizing volume V = 2Vexp − Vcomp , where Vexp and Vcomp
are the expanded and compressed volumes of the gas. Take care to understand
this equation). For an isothermal compression/expansion, what pressure ratio
results in the peak energy density?
4. A gas accumulator has a precharge of 12 MPa and an expanded volume of 6
liters. The accumulator is adiabatically compressed to a final volume of 3 liters.
Assume γ = 1.4.
(a) How much energy is stored in the accumulator?
(b) If the compression process were isothermal instead of adiabatic, how much
energy would be stored in the accumulator?
5. What does it mean for a servovalve spool to be “critically lapped?” How does
this impact manufacturing?
6. Servovalves have at least two stages. What are the primary roles of the first
and second stages of a two stage servovalve?
7. Rotation of the torque motor in a servovalve restricts one jet and allows free
flow through the other. What effect does this have on the spool force balance?
8. How does the second stage of a servovalve provide closed-loop feedback to the
first stage?
9. Modify the hydraulic hybrid simulation to include hydraulic line inertia between
the pump and the accumulators. How does the size of the accumulators influence
high frequency response?
10. The hydraulic hybrid simulation presented in lecture was designed for a pas-
senger vehicle. Size components appropriate for a refuse truck, and rerun the
simulations. To get started, consider a mass of 20,000 kg, a frontal area of 7m2 ,
a drag coefficient of 0.7, a tire radius of 0.5 m, and a rolling resistance coefficient
of 0.01. Is the required size of the components different for the sinusoidal speed
profile vs. the Urban Dynamometer Driving Schedule? If so, in what ways?