Hydraulic Circuit in Agricultural Tractors, a Step Forward for Energy Saving

The increasing interest to reduce the pollutant emissions in off road vehicles drives the research to alternative solutions aimed to decrease power dissipation for the hydraulic circuit that equips these vehicles. In this work higher efficiency hydraulic architectures in agriculture tractors are proposed and compared with the traditional layout. The alternative circuit architecture uses independent metering valves and electronically controlled variable pump. The analysis is performed with reference to the hydraulic circuit and operating conditions typical of the remote utilities has been used, obtained through experimental measurement on a tractor equipped with a front loader. The traditional and alternative architectures have been modelled using a lumped parameter approach. In that way it has been possible to show that a considerable quantity of energy can be saved using the alternative architectures.