Health monitoring of telescopic hydraulic cylinder

Abstract

A telescopic hydraulic cylinder is a specially designed hydraulic actuator that can provide a long-extended length with a very small, contracted length. A telescopic cylinder is made up of cylinder tubes and piston rods. It converts highly pressurized fluid energy into mechanical reciprocation. These telescopic cylinders work at very high pressure due to which designing them is a difficult task. To design a telescopic cylinder there is a lack of a standardized approach making the designing and production process a tedious job. This work proposes a simulation based solution to the above issue. A MATLAB-Simscape model of a 2- stage double-acting telescopic hydraulic cylinder is developed. The development of the model is done using basic components necessarily required for a hydraulic actuator circuit to work. Further, the model is optimized using the parameters of the experimental test rig. Using this test rig the simulation model is validated by comparing the characteristics plots obtained by both the processes. This validated model can be used further for diagnostics and designing purposes. In continuation, the simulation model is simulated for two more input control signals. The characteristic plot of position and pressure are studied and interpreted. The information regarding the variation of pressure inside the telescopic hydraulic cylinder and the position of the cylinder under different loading control signals is useful to design an industry-ready hydraulic actuation setup.