Abstract
Electro-hydrostatic actuators (EHAs) combine the advantages of electric and hydraulic actuation, and it results in a preferable solution for heavy load actuation. The required power level of the EHA is increasing because it is being introduced to large vehicles such as submarines and heavy launch vehicles. Thus, a 30 kW EHA is under development for launch vehicles, which simultaneously require high dynamic performance, light weight, high efficiency, etc. Therefore, a dedicated multi-objective optimization design method is proposed for the preliminary design of the 30 kW EHA. In this study, firstly, the design requirements were analyzed for the launch vehicle application, and the objectives and the constraints of the optimization design were defined for the 30 kW EHA. Secondly, dedicated models were developed for evaluating each objective or constraint, including weight, bandwidth, and efficiency. Thirdly, the multi-objective EHA optimization design was implemented based on the genetic algorithm. Lastly, the optimization design results were evaluated through simulation analysis, which demonstrated that the 30 kW EHA achieved more than 10 Hz bandwidth with under 72 kg weight while the efficiency was also optimized.
Highlights
Heavy machinery and vehicles conventionally utilize hydraulic actuators due to the advantages of high power-to-weight ratio, high force capability, durability, etc
The electro-hydrostatic actuators (EHAs) preliminary design can be treated as a multi-objective optimization problem, where the bounded requirements are defined as constraints, the open requirements are defined as objectives, and the parameters to be determined are defined as variables
Heavy vehicles put forward critical requirements for the actuation system, i.e. high efficiency, high dynamic, robustness, etc. should be simultaneously fulfilled under a high-power level. This results in a challenge for EHA development, which is a multidisciplinary and high integrated product
Summary
Heavy machinery and vehicles conventionally utilize hydraulic actuators due to the advantages of high power-to-weight ratio, high force capability, durability, etc. The power level of current EHAs is usually under 15 kW, yet enough to replace the conventional hydraulics utilized in the huge machinery and vehicles, such as heavy launch vehicles and submarines. Andersson introduced a multi-objective optimization design method for hydraulic actuators, but it only considered the control error while didn’t consider the response time [4]. Xue et al proposed a multi-objective optimization design method of EHA, whereas the control parameters were not analyzed clearly [7]. Optimization design excluding key requirements like the control performance results in incompetent for developing actuators for the huge heavy machinery and vehicles, which simultaneously possess multiple challenging requirements. This paper proposes a multi-objective optimization design framework that involves the requirements directly from the EHA specifications, especially the control performance.
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