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Using virtual prototyping to avoid oversizing components for specialized hydraulic solutions

Advanced Actuators uses Simcenter to retrofit a processing facility with a precise and reliable solution

Advanced Actuators uses Simcenter to retrofit a processing facility with a precise and reliable solution

Advanced Actuators

Advanced Actuators Limited is a leading supplier of actuators, control solutions and hydraulic omponents. Since 1969, the company has been serving niche markets in the oil and gas, nuclear, power, water and bulk material handling sectors. It has become one of the world’s leaders in electro-hydraulic engineering.

https://advanced-actuators.com/

Centrala:
Silsden, United Kingdom
Produkty:
Simcenter Amesim
Sektor przemysłowy:
Maszyny przemysłowe

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With Simcenter Amesim, we’ve proved that we can meet the customer specs without producing a physical prototype.
Chris Woodhead, Director, Advanced Actuators

Optimizing performance and efficiency

In the evolving landscape of industrial automation, providing a precise, energy-efficient, cost-effective solution is a significant challenge. Advanced Actuators Limited (Advanced Actuators), a prominent player in this field, faces the formidable task of designing hydraulic actuators that meet all three criteria. Their clientele spans various industries, including oil and gas, bulk materials and power generation.

“We specialize in the niche market segment that others avoid, fully integrating hydraulic and electrical controls,” explains Chris Woodhead, director of Advanced Actuators. “Our expertise lies in combining mechanical, electrical and hydraulic principles under one roof.”

There’s an increasing demand for skilled engineers to provide complete turnkey solutions. “The ability to package everything together is a significant advantage,” Woodhead emphasizes. However, developing such comprehensive systems poses unique challenges, involving numerous components and complex interactions across diverse engineering disciplines.

Proficiency in understanding and optimizing these interactions is essential to delivering tightly integrated solutions.

To meet these challenges, Advanced Actuators called on Siemens Digital Industries Software’s Simcenter™ Amesim™ software.

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Overengineering to avoid failure

Overengineering unnecessarily inflates costs. “Simulation is crucial,” says Woodhead. “It is very difficult, if not impossible, to assess a system’s spare capacity accurately without it. Oversized hydraulic systems lead to inefficiencies, using unnecessary materials or components, demanding more complicated maintenance and consuming excessive energy.”

“We need to ensure that both the hydraulics and mechanics operate at optimal levels,” explains Paul Hudson, senior design engineer at Advanced Actuators. The goal is to find this optimized design solution at a reasonable cost.

Time-to-market pressure

“People expect real-time communication and accuracy from the outset,” says Woodhead. "Anything that facilitates this is advantageous. Speed is of the essence.” Streamlining the design process without compromising accuracy is crucial for growing the business.

Environmental concerns

Sustainability is another critical focus. Advanced Actuators is under mounting pressure to provide systems that meet performance standards while reducing energy consumption and emissions. A holistic perspective of the entire system is essential to achieve this. “If we calculate correctly, the energy savings for the customer could last for 20 years or more,” explains Hudson.

Advanced Actuators has embraced the concept of a digital transformation due to the pivotal role of predictive simulation and early validation. Leveraging Simcenter Amesim, which is part of the Siemens Xcelerator business platform of software, hardware and services, Advanced
Actuators has been able to expedite design validation and fine-tune solutions for hydraulic actuators and controllers.

Using Simcenter Amesim equips Advanced Actuators to simulate complete hydraulic systems with pinpoint accuracy, enabling thorough analysis of design nuances and component interactions. This approach delivers precise alignment with requirements and fosters cost-effectiveness and environmental sustainability. “With Simcenter Amesim, we engineer systems that are quite adept at their tasks without unnecessary complexity,” says Woodhead.

Fewer physical prototypes

“Simcenter Amesim enables us to design and validate systems efficiently, reducing rework and speeding up project delivery,” explains Hudson.

“It instills confidence in our designs, ensuring they perform as expected,” emphasizes Woodhead.

Working with Maya HTT, a Siemens Digital Industries Software expert partner, helped Advanced Actuators leverage Simcenter Amesim system simulations for design as quickly as possible. “They understand the problems we’ve been giving them and how to achieve what we’re looking for,” says Woodhead.

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Retrofitting a reprocessing facility

One of their clients encountered a problem with an automated hydraulically operated linear saw with a vertical drop. This saw is used for processing hazardous materials. The material is fed into the saw to cut into smaller sections for further processing. The hydraulic saw specifications are in the table at the bottom of the page.

Installed by another supplier over 30 years ago, the mechanism needed upgrading and simplifying (if possible) to help fix reoccurring backlogs in the reprocessing cycle, posing a risk to the plant’s operation. The system’s complexity made setup challenging, and minor adjustments by operators could halt the saw’s operation. The system initially operated the saw and a welding machine; however, the welding machine was removed, leaving the scope
to simplify further.

Limited access to the equipment due to health and safety restrictions meant it was impossible to remove the saw to test new equipment, complicating the process and making physical prototyping impractical.

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Hydraulic circuit used to control saw blade rate of feed and frequency of operation.

Using their expert knowledge and Simcenter Amesim data supplied by the customer, Advanced Actuators designed a hydraulic circuit that reduced the complexity of accumulators and multiple pumps, making the setup more straightforward and preventing adjustment issues.

Simcenter Amesim was used to understand the circuit’s action to produce the required lifting and lowering of the saw on each stroke. “Part of the contract involves using Simcenter Amesim for an animated demonstration and validation of the proposed system,” says Woodhead. “This enabled us to verify the circuit’s correct operation before construction.”

Despite limited access to the equipment, using Simcenter Amesim enabled Advanced Actuators to develop a hydraulic circuit that simplified operations, reduced complexity, prevented adjustment issues and enhanced the facility’s safety. By accurately simulating the system’s behavior and identifying spare capacity, Advanced Actuators avoided overengineering and unnecessary costs, ensuring precision and reliability in the solution.

Advanced

New business

Advanced Actuators is reinvesting their time and cost savings to concentrate on new opportunities. “For instance, we are delving into the turbine bypass control market and anti-surge valve controls, which are some very onerous needs regarding position control, accuracy and speed,” says Woodhead. “With Simcenter Amesim, we’ve proved that we can meet the customer specs without producing a physical prototype.”

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Simcenter Amesim enables us to design and validate systems efficiently, reducing rework and speeding up project delivery.
Paul Hudson, Senior Design Engineer, Advanced Actuators