REPRESENTATIVES from 19 National Fluid Power Association member companies worked with the NFPA and the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences to complete the Technology Roadmap for the Fluid Power Industry.
Their work is part of an initiative being led by NFPA to develop a technology roadmap - an action plan of research objectives and the specific strategies to achieve them - to bring about industry-elevating technology advancements for hydraulics and pneumatics.
The group met initially in March 2009, where they identified key research and development challenges facing the fluid power industry. At their second meeting in May, specific research objectives and envisioned technology advancements were identified; each designed to address those challenges.
The six key R&D challenges identified are:
• Increasing the energy efficiency of fluid power components and systems.
• Improving the reliability of fluid power components and systems (e.g., increasing up-time, eliminating leaks, reducing maintenance requirements, making fluid power safe and easy to use).
• Reducing the size of fluid power components and systems while maintaining or increasing their power output.
• Building “smart” fluid power components and systems (i.e., ones that perform self diagnostics/prognostics and troubleshooting; integrate easily with “plug and play” functionality).
• Reducing the environmental impact of fluid power components and systems (e.g., lowering noise, eliminating leaks).
• Improving and applying the energy storage, recovery and redeployment capabilities of fluid power components and systems.
The Roadmap provides companies, universities, governments, and other research providers and funders with an industry-wide consensus regarding the research and development needs of the fluid power industry. Organisations that wish to pursue projects of importance to the fluid power industry should therefore consider seeking alignment with the Roadmap’s identified challenges.
NFPA will also use the Roadmap to specifically guide the research agendas of the Engineering Research Center for Compact and Efficient Fluid Power and the NFPA Education and Technology Foundation, and to guide future standardisation work.
Add a comment