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This work aims to analyse a complete hydraulic system of a medium size agricultural tractor, in order to perform an energy dissipation analysis and to test possible alternative configurations and solutions. The fuel consumption and energy dissipation in off-road vehicles have infact become a key feature, given the great attention devoted to the need of reducing pollutant emissions, in order to satisfy the future emission limits. Standard and alternative architecture configurations are modelled and compared on the basis of the power consumption to perform the same duty cycle. Among the results, it is worth highlighting that a relevant percentage of energy may be saved with simple modifications in the hydraulic power generation group.

This paper is aimed at investigating the benefits in terms of energy efficiency of new electro-hydraulic architectures for power distribution systems of a medium-size agricultural tractor, with a focus on the hydraulic high-pressure circuit. The work is part of a wider industrial research project called TASC (Smart and Clean Agricultural Tractors [1]). Traditional and alternative architectures have been modelled and energetically compared through simulation, using a lumped parameter approach. Experimental data previously acquired have been used to validate the models and to replicate real working conditions of the machine in the simulation environment. A typical on-field manoeuvre has been used as duty cycle, to perform an effective energetic analysis. The standard hydraulic circuit is a multi-users load sensing system that uses a single variable displacement pump to feed steering, trailer brake and auxiliary utilities in that order. The key idea of the proposed solutions is the separation of steering from the other implements, to optimize the entire energy management. In particular, the paper investigates new and flexible solutions for the auxiliary utilities, including an electro-hydraulic load sensing architecture with variable pump margin, an electronic flow matching and flow sharing architecture, and an electronic strategy for automatic pressure compensation. The simulation results show that good energy saving can be achieved with the alternative architectures, so that physical prototyping of the most promising solutions will be realized as next step of the project.

In this paper a tool integrating a multibody full car model of a tractor and the hydraulic model of the suspension system is presented as a virtual tool able to help the designer and also the control tuning of the system. The full car approach is chosen in order to be able to describe all the vehicles movements (roll, yaw, pitch) while the detailed lumped parameters model of the hydraulic suspensions allows to consider the role of the electrohydraulic valves, accumulator, hydraulic actuator on the vehicle dynamic behaviour. The hydraulic model and the multibody model exchange forces and displacements at the joint points: one between actuator and sprung mass (chassis) and the other one between actuator and unsprung mass (front axle and wheels). Experimental test have been performed (suspension leveling maneuvers, tests on ISO 50008 track, bump tests) and the results of the numerical model have been compared with the experimental data, allowing the understanding of the influence of the numerous design and control parameters involved in the determination of the vehicle dynamic behaviour. The influence of mechanical and geometrical parameters on the damping force hysteresis measured during levelling test are shown and described. Finally, the dynamic behavior of the suspension is analyzed making reference to a dynamic test over a bump.

Increasing interest in reducing pollutant emissions and fuel consumption of off-road vehicles has led to research alternative systems that aim to reduce the power dissipations of the hydraulic circuits. This work presents the advantages of few alternative solutions for a hydraulic high-pressure circuit of a medium-size tractor. The standard high-pressure circuit is a typical multiusers load sensing system that uses a single variable displacement pump to feed: steering, trailer brake, rear remotes, hitch and suspension. The alternative architectures have been simulated and compared in terms of mechanical energy consumption. In particular, the steering has been separated from the circuit, it has been actuated by means of a dedicated pump moved by an electric motor, in this way the priority valve could be removed and losses due the pressure compensators are reduced. A further architecture based on the insertion of the LS signal conditioner was studied. The results show that relevant energy saving can be achieved with the new alternative architectures; the physical prototyping of the most promising solutions will be realized as the next step of the project.