Hydraulic Motors: What Is A Hydraulic Motor and Why Do You Need It?
Hydraulic Motors: What Is A Hydraulic Motor and Why Do You Need It?
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The Hydraulic motor described here (pdf) is a radial-piston type motor. The
motor has a rotating cylinder shaft and stationary housing. The cylinder block
is mounted in fixed roller bearings in the housing. Even numbers of pistons
are located in bores inside the cylinder block.
The valve plate directs the incoming and outgoing oil to and from the working
piston. Each piston is working against a cam roller. Because of the hydraulic
pressure the pistons pushes the cam rollers when going down on the cam ring
and transmits no power when going up. This principle produces torque and
therefore the shaft starts rotating.
Different Types of Hydraulic Motors
The hydraulic motor must be geared to hydraulic system requirements; issues
such as load, range of load, speed, serviceability, etc. must be taken into
account. There are different types of hydraulic motors, as noted below:
Hydraulic Gear Motors
Rotary Actuator
Low cost
Wide range of speeds
Wide temperature range
Simple and durable design
Wide viscosity range
A major drawback of gear motors is that they produce a large amount of
noise. Gear motors with only one direction of rotation are designed exactly the
same as external gear pumps. A gear motor that can change directions of
rotation has a drain case port and the axial pressure fields are different. The
efficiency of gear motors is relatively low due to oil leakage.
Typical parameters are:
Displacement volume: 3 to 100 cc
Maximum pressure: up to 250 bar
Range of speeds: 500 to 4,000 rpm
Maximum torque: up to 400 Nm
Back to top - Hydraulic Gear Motors
Epicyclic Gear Motor
Epicyclic gear motors are also called orbit motors, gear ring motors or gerotor
motors. Unlike gear motors, the orbit motor has very low oil leakage. The
motor can produce large torques at very slow speeds (approximately 5 rpm).
Key features of epicyclic gear motors, gear ring, orbit or gerotor motors are:
Low oil leakage
High torque at low speeds
Large displacement volume
amount of power, a hydraulic piston motor is the best option. Whether your
heavy-duty installation needs high torques or high speeds determines the
choice of either a radial piston or axial piston motor.
Multi-stroke piston motors increase displacement substantially because each
piston carries out multiple strokes per revolution of the shaft. Hence, a
hydraulic multi-stroke piston motor produces high operating torques.
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Axial Piston Motor
Similar to piston pumps, axial piston motors work with a bent axis design or
swash plate principle. The fixed displacement type works as a hydraulic motor,
and the variable displacement type most often functions as a hydraulic pump.
Fixed displacement motors may be used in both open and closed loop
circuits.
In the bent axis design, pistons move up and down within the cylinder block
bores. This motion is converted into rotary movement via the piston ball joint
at the drive flange. In the swash plate design, pistons move up and down
within the cylinder block and turn it, which then turns the drive shaft via the
connected cotter pin.
Typical parameters of axial piston motors:
Displacement volume: 10 to 1,000 cc (multi-stroke up to 1,500 cc)
Maximum pressure: up to 450 bar
Speed range: 500 to 11,000 rpm
Maximum torque: up to 10,750 Nm
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Radial Piston Motor
Radial piston motors are used in caterpillar drives of dragline excavators,
cranes, winches and ground drilling equipment. Radial piston motors are
capable of producing high torques at very low speeds, down to half a
revolution per minute. Therefore, radial piston motors are also referred to as
Low Speed High Torque (LSHT) motors.
The pistons (or plungers) of a radial piston motor form a star-like shape and
are perpendicularly connected to the shaft. The rectilinear motion of the
pistons is transformed into a rotating movement by the eccentric shaft.
Typical parameters of radial piston motors:
Displacement volume: 10 to 8,500 cc
Maximum pressure: up to 300 bar (multi-stroke up to 450 bar)
Range of speeds: 0.5 to 2,000 rpm
Maximum torque: up to 32,000 Nm (multi-stroke up to 45,000 Nm)
Back to top - Hydraulic Piston Motors
Part-turn Actuators
Part-turn actuators are mainly used for bunker slides, opening butterfly valves,
and for push, pull, lift and mix operations.
This type of actuator, also known as a rotary actuator, can only rotate left or
right over an angle of 300. They operate at pressures around 70 bar. Partturn actuators are much smaller than cylinders and do not have any external
moving parts.
Part-turn actuators are very simple in design. There are two versions: one has
two wings on the axle, and the other one has two internal dividers. This
construction brings the swivel bracket back to around 120 and doubles the
torque. The first version is prone to a low, continuous leakage rate along the
wing. This means that, during operation, the rotary actuator must be under
constant pressure in order to perform properly.
Part-turn actuators perform a slewing motion across a shaft end when
pressurised with hydraulic fluid, regardless of the type or design of the unit.
The angle that a part-turn actuator moves through is limited by fixed or