Design of a Hydraulic System for Liquid Packaging

The paper analyzes the dynamic behaviour of an industrial system devoted to the automated hydraulic packaging of beverages. More in detail, a lumped and distributed numerical approach is used to model both the filling system and the multi-actuators hydraulic circuit needed to shape and separate the packages. The model reliability and accuracy are addressed by means of a numerical vs. experimental comparison of the main hydraulic and mechanical quantities for an actual production rate. Afterwards, the system architecture is redesigned in order to obtain higher production rates, and the effects of the hydraulic behaviour variation on the hydraulic efficiency are highlighted. Finally, a sensitivity analysis with respect to the main design parameters is carried out, in order to determine the circuit layout that maximizes the system efficiency in the whole production-rate range.