Centre of Excellence in Fluid Power Research

Institute of Hydraulics and Automation (IHA)
Tampere University of Technology (TUT)
Tampere, Finland

Location Tampere, Finland
Responsible Leader Professor Matti Vilenius, Dr.Tech
Staff 60, including 5 professors
Operational idea Research and high level education in fluid power and automation area
Main research areas Water hydraulics and Mobile hydraulics
Laboratory facilities About 860 m2 
Address Korkeakoulunkatu 2, P.O. Box 589
FIN-33101 Tampere, Finland
Telephone number +358 3 365 2264
Telefax number +358-3-365 2240
Email vilenius@cc.tut.fi
Internet Site http://www.tut.fi/~ihatut/


Nominations: Centre of Excellence in Research by Academy of Finland

Institute of Hydraulics and Automation (IHA) in Tampere University of Technology has been nominated as Centre of Excellence in Research for the years 2000-2005 by Academy of Finland. This is the highest nomination which is possible for a research group or unit to achieve in Finland. IHA is the first unit in mechanical and automation engineering ever achieved this nomination. The nomination has also a economic value meaning additional funding for the unit during years 2000-2005. The funding is provided by Academy of Finland, Tekes Foundation, TUT and company Sandvik Tamrock.
IHA is one of the largest research centres in fluid power and automation in Europe.  IHA is part of Automation Department of the university. The activities of IHA has concentrated on research and education of fluid power and automation systems. Today there are about 60 people working in IHA including 5 professors, and about 50 researchers and research assistants. The turnover of IHA was in 1998 over 3 million Euro including over 50 % external income.
The co-operation with industry is very essential in IHA’s activities. This comes already from TUT’s basic operational idea: The University of Industry.  The most part of finance is coming from industry via projects carried out together with companies. The idea is to take companies with into the project as early as possible to ensure the right direction for research. The co-operation companies are both domestic and international (Figure 1). IHA has a lot of co-operation also with other research institutes both inside and outside of TUT.

Figure 1. Professor Matti Vilenius, IHA (left), Vice-President Rolf Ström, Sandvik Tamrock, President Robert Koski, Sun hydraulics, Vice-President Peter Wusthoff, Mannesman Rexroth and Professor Wolgang Backe, IFAS visiting in IHA’s free piston engine laboratory during SICFP 99 conference.

Technology strategy

The technology structure of IHA is divided in two main research areas in fluid power: water hydraulics and mobile hydraulics. These two research areas form also the two main research groups in IHA. In IHA’s technology these two areas are named as key technology areas. That means that in these areas IHA’s objective is to be internationally in top class. These key technologies are supported by basic and supporting technologies. These include for example material science, control science, digital electronics, production technology etc.
An essential part of IHA’s operational strategy is the fluid power laboratory, which is one of the largest and best equipped hydraulics lab in whole Europe. This means that both in water and oil hydraulics a large variety of testing facilities are available and modern measuring and controlling systems are used. The laboratory is also divided so that also confidential projects can be carried out easily. The laboratory staff has also very large experience and good know-how in all practical problems related in fluid power.

Research areas

The research activity at IHA concentrates to the water hydraulics and mobile hydraulics. The Figure 2 describes the structure of research teams. The water hydraulics research team leader is Professor Kari T. Koskinen, Dr.Tech. and the mobile hydraulics research team leader is Professor Tapio Virvalo, Dr.Tech. There are three supporting research activities in IHA: Fluid power system Condition Monitoring, Computer simulation of fluid power and mechanical systems, and Teleoperation and Robotics.
 

Research groups in IHA




The new fluid power element - water



Water hydraulics

Water hydraulics is the first fluid power technology, which is used already in 18th century. The modern water hydraulics technology is new application area, which has had strongly increasing trend since 1980's. Using different waters instead of oils in hydraulic systems brings the following benefits: environmental safe, fire safe, explosion safe, low cost fluid, good availability of the fluid, easy storage of the fluid etc. As only research institute in Europe IHA has put systematically efforts on developing water hydraulics technology during 1990's. Research have been made in different projects in Finland and internationally. Via these basic, applied and industrial research projects IHA has reached the position as a Europe's leading water hydraulics research institute. This is very widely recognised by the other international institutes and industry. The objective in water hydraulics in the future will be keeping this position and making it far more stable.

Mobile hydraulics

Mobile hydraulics is a large research area, which includes for example the following subjects: bio-oils, hydrostatic transmissions, free piston engine technology, hydraulic boom technology etc. In bio-oils IHA has been the first one to introduce idea of using vegetable oil in hydraulic systems (Aachen international conference, 1984, Germany). Since beginning of 1980's has had continuos co-operation with Finnish industry to develop bio-oils for hydraulics. Today these Finnish products are sold world wide. Research of hydrostatic transmissions and hydraulic boom technology has produced many new products for the co-operation companies and many new methods for modelling, simulation and control of mobile machines. In free piston engines IHA has been among the first ones to getting this challenging engine working. In the beginning of 1990's the first double acting hydraulic free piston engine was started in IHA's laboratory. Today IHA is developing further the whole free piston engine technology taking account the environment and appropriate applications. It has generally recognised that IHA is among the top research institutes and universities in mobile hydraulics sector. The objective in mobile hydraulics will be strengthen this position and developing it further.

Avant Techno small mobile working machine

Supporting technologies

Condition monitoring of Fluid Power Components and Systems has been one of the research areas in IHA from the beginning of 1990. Currently this main area is divided to five following areas: particle measurements in hydraulic and lubrication oil systems, filtration, diagnostics of fluid power components, development of lube oil reservoir and the influence of water to hydraulic oil and Vickers-tests. Computer simulation of fluid power and mechanical systems and virtual testing are also very essential supporting research area. IHA has been involved in modelling and computer simulation of fluid power systems already over 20 years. The simulation program called SIMU has been developed in IHA. SIMU includes all the expertise of integration algorithms, sophisticated component models and interaction of hydraulics and mechanics developed during the years. SIMU and many other simulation tools are also very essential for the researchers of IHA when carrying out different research tasks. Teleoperation and Robotics is also one of the supporting technology areas in IHA. The research has been carried both in oil and water hydraulics. The main area has been the model-based teleoperation of different manipulators. All the supporting activities can be also seen as a part of main research teams, but because they have more general nature they can provide essential support for both teams.

Education activities

IHA gives education in fluid power and automation both in MSc- and PhD-levels. In MSc-level there are about 30 different courses. MSc-degrees are produced annually about 20-30.
In addition to universities and research institutes more doctors are needed also in industry in the future. Especially demanded technological business activities will need more deeper view of technology. In PhD-level IHA belongs to three different Graduate Schools. IHA acts as a co-ordinator in national PEGS (Power Engineering Graduate School). In addition IHA co-ordinates TUT's internal MAGS (Machine Automation Graduate School) and belongs to CEGS Concurrent Engineering Graduate School). The total number of PhD-students is about 30 including 20 students, which are funded by industry and research projects. The annual doctor-production is expected to about 2-4.

Laboratory facilities

The modern laboratory facilities are very important in both oil and water hydraulics research. IHA has modern laboratory equipment and several power water and oil hydraulic power sources for building different test rigs. In the near future IHA will put effort on mobile hydraulics research by building new laboratory facilities, where mobile machines can be tested in their natural environment.

Research references

Annually there are about different 20-30 projects carried out in IHA. This means over 100 co-operation partners all together all over the world. The research can be both basic research and applied research, which means that many of the research tasks are confidential. However, in many cases these both research activity forms are followed by each other. In the following three different research cases are shortly introduced.
The research of different fluids and especially vegetable oil based hydraulic fluids has been very active in IHA since the beginning of 80's. Together with Finnish company Raisio IHA develop the first fluids to the market. Since that the whole industry has been developed around the vegetable oils and bio oils. Naturally the research continues today to find out even better environmentally friendly fluids for fluid power systems.
The research of fluid power systems in drilling machines has also been a big part of IHA's research activities. A drilling machine is very demanding environment, where very reliable operation is essential. Therefor the hydraulics have be designed and optimised so the effect of all external disturbances can be handled. This needs total understanding of the whole process and therefore or example modelling and simulation the systems and components has an significant role in this research.
In water hydraulics a lot of interesting applications has been developed and researched. One these is the water hydraulic injection system for large diesel engines. IHA has been developing together with Wärtsilä NSD a new modern water injection systems for to be used in marine and power station diesels. The idea of the water injection is to reduce NOx-exhausts of the engine. Today the system has been installed already in many ships.
 

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Professor Matti Vilenius, Head of IHA
Professor Kari T. Koskinen, Professor of Fluid Power
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