Comprehensive Approach for Saving Fuel due to Electrification - in the context of “ERMA – Energy and Resource Efficient Mobile Working Machines”

The fuel consumption strongly affects the development of mobile working machines. Hence, potential for reducing the energy consumption of a wheeled excavator is investigated at the RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau. For improving the fuel consumption a comprehensive approach considering the machine’s typical tasks is proposed. It focuses on the reduction of the energy demand of the overall system and how to cover this demand in an efficient way by considering the machine as a mechatronical system with respect to the full product life cycle. In order to reduce the energy demand, former hydraulic sub-functions are replaced or modified by electric actuators. An operation strategy for the decoupled energysupply
unit (combustion engine, generator and converter) is defined to cover the
required energy demand efficiently. After this, the resulting electric hybrid system is compared to the current hydraulic system by the use of numerical simulation. The comparison states the large potential for saving energy respectively diesel fuel for the investigated tasks.

_{Pick, S.; Müller, S.; Scholler, C.; Schindler, C.: Comprehensive Approach for Saving Fuel due to Electrification- in the context of ERMA. Proc. of the 3rd Commercial Vehicle Technology Symposium, Shaker, Aachen 2014, S. 224-233. - ISBN: 978-3-8440-2573-6.}