Energy saving of cutterhead hydraulic drive system of shield tunneling machine

• A variable speed hydraulic system for cutterhead drive is proposed.
• Power transmission efficiency of the cutterhead drive system is greatly improved.
• Energy consumption of the systems is analyzed theoretically and experimentally.
• System efficiency is increased, irrespective of the cases in different soils.
• Energy consumption of new system was reduced by 50% in a certain speed range.

In this paper, an energy saving drive system with variable speed hydrostatic control for cutterhead drive of shield tunneling machine is presented. The mathematical models of electric motor link and pump controlled motor link are built. Power consumption and energy losses of each link through the whole drive system are analyzed. To compare with the conventional cutterhead hydraulic drive system, simulations and experiments are carried out concerning a test rig with the hydraulic loading system performing different working conditions. Base on a group of tunneling parameters in three typical types of soil layers and the characteristics similarities between the drive systems of model machine cutterhead and variable speed pump controlled motor, the energy saving effect and system efficiency improvement of the proposed cutterhead drive system compared with the system currently undergoing services are achieved finally, providing a promising drive technique with great potential of energy saving.