Center for Compact and Efficient Fluid Power

The Center for Compact and Efficient Fluid Power's interdisciplinary and varied research agenda has three main efforts. New control approaches and system configurations will be developed to replace current, inefficient valve-throttling approaches. These include high-performance pump control, regeneration, and on-off valve improvements. By increasing the efficiency of fluid power in existing and new applications, the CCEFP will save billions of dollars in energy, mostly in petroleum, and pay for the center many times over. PWM control and biomimetic distributed pumping and control are expected to spawn new pump motors and actuators with improved efficiency. These will be enabled by actively controlled tribological surfaces. Biologically inspired coatings also will reduce drag.

By decreasing size and weight, fluid power systems can migrate from heavy equipment to human-scale assistive devices, again creating more new industries. Phase-change energy storage also will likely create more compact energy storage and sources. Chemofluidic-actuation and free-piston engine compressors will provide order-of-magnitude better energy and power density for self-powered and mobile devices, enabling many new applications. Composite and functionally graded materials and integrating components into unified systems will further minimize the weight and volume of fluid power systems.

Understandably, no one will use new fluid power unless it's safe, quiet, clean, and easy to use. The CCEFP also will address problems with noise, vibration, leakage, contamination, and awkward interfaces. This will lead to wider, more efficient and more satisfactory use of fluid power.

Besides gains in the injection-molding industry, the CCEFP projects other new industries will be created where compact and efficient fluid power can be used for underwater exploration, rescue operations, remotely manipulating nuclear materials, bomb disposal, medical and rehabilitation applications, and wearable or compact tools for home and industrial use. Improved compactness will enable fluid power to perform other tasks that aren't presently possible.

Improved efficiency also will reduce petroleum consumption and pollution. If new fluid-power technology could cause a 10% improvement in overall fuel consumption for transportation, $24 billion in crude oil would be saved each year. The superior power density of fluid power makes it ideal for regenerative braking with field tests, showing 25-35% fuel savings for trucks. The CCEFP also will develop high-density accumulators, making regeneration feasible for passenger vehicles, and resulting in larger energy savings. Savings also can be achieved in the construction, mining, agricultural and industrial sectors.

New fluid-power approaches developed at the CCEFP will be demonstrated on six test beds. These are the excavator, injection molding machine, small Urban Vehicle (sUV), compact rescue crawler, fluid power assisted hand-tools, and fluid-power-assisted orthoses and prostheses. The excavator will be located at Purdue; the injection molding machine, sUV and fluid-power-assisted hand-tools will be at Minnesota; the compact rescue crawler is a joint project between Georgia Tech and Vanderbilt; and the fluid power assisted orthoses and prostheses will be at Illinois.