Hydraulic Excavator Working Cycle: From Field Test to Simulation Model

The paper describes a method to build up and tune a simulation model of the hydraulic excavator operating equipment which basically relies on actual evidences gathered during field test of real machines. Trench digging and soil levelling are the most significant excavator applications. The definition of a reference operating cycle for both of them provides a significant functional outline to be considered. Therefore, representative cycle load maps are first issued from field testing of real machines featuring two widely applied hydraulic system architecture: open center multiple flow and closed center load sensing flow sharing. Then, a simulation model related to each architecture is set up. Finally, each model is checked for functional compatibility with respective experimental evidences.