Improving Energy Efficiency of Flexible Pneumatic Systems

Slobodan Dudić, Vule Reljić, Dragan Šešlija, Nikolina Dakić and Vladislav Blagojević
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Slobodan Dudić: Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad, Trg Dositeja Obradovica 6, 21000 Novi Sad, Serbia
Vule Reljić: Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad, Trg Dositeja Obradovica 6, 21000 Novi Sad, Serbia
Dragan Šešlija: Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad, Trg Dositeja Obradovica 6, 21000 Novi Sad, Serbia
Nikolina Dakić: Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad, Trg Dositeja Obradovica 6, 21000 Novi Sad, Serbia
Vladislav Blagojević: Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Nis, Aleksandra Medvedeva 14, 18000 Nis, Serbia

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 7, 1-17

Abstract: During pneumatic control system design, the critical value for choosing the appropriate pneumatic actuator is the weight of the workpiece. In the case of flexible production systems, which are the core part of the Industry 4.0 (I4.0) concept, the weight of the workpieces is often variable, since the crucial feature of this kind of production is its ability to deal with variable parts. Therefore, in order to deal with the variable weight of parts, a pneumatic actuator is chosen according to the heaviest part. However, according to another I4.0 principle, energy efficient operation of machines, the previous criteria for choosing a pneumatic actuator is energy efficient only when handling the heaviest part. In all other cases, operation of the pneumatic actuator is suboptimal in terms of energy efficiency. Aiming to solve this problem, this paper considers the possibility of using a new pressure regulator instead of traditional manually adjusted pressure regulators. This regulator provides operating pressure modification in real-time in accordance with the weight of the workpieces. In this way, the optimal compressed air consumption is ensured for each workpiece. Implementation of this device has yielded significant energy savings; however, the value is variable and depends on working task characteristics.

Keywords: energy efficiency; energy savings; flexible production systems; automatically controlled pressure regulator; product mix (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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