FPTS 2018 Highlights

The 3rd edition of technical seminar FPTS 2018 was organised by FPSI at Prof. MRD Auditorium of PES University, Bengaluru on 19th & 20th June.Curtain raiser was given by Mr. Srinivas Guttikar, Member, Technical Committee..“The Fluid Power Industry is typically described as having four segments: Mobile Hydraulic, Industrial Hydraulic, Pneumatic and Defense & Aerospace. In the recent past, the Mobile Hydraulic segment has been the largest, garnering around 40 per cent of sales.It is gratifying to note that the agenda of the Seminar covered a wide range of very interesting items relating to the Industrial & Mobile Hydraulics, Fluid conditioning, Simulation & System Integration and Disruptive Technologies in Fluid Power Industry. We had keynote speakers in each session.

To give you glimpse of each session, we started first day, First session, starting with Keynote address on “New Methods and Approaches for Fluid Power Next Generation” by Mr. Davide Mesturini, Global Head of R&D, Walvoil Fluid Power, Italy followed by Talk on High Torque Radial Piston Motor, Reliability improvement in hydraulic cylinder, high performing new curing rubber for hoses, Fault tolerant electro hydrostatic actuator and ending the session on interesting topic in Agricultural domain covering “Dynamic Performance of Pressure Compensating Circuits in Hitch Control Valves”.

Fluid Power Fluid health is very important and hence in Afternoon session was committed to Fluid Conditioning. Here we have Keynote speaker Prof. B.V.S.S.S. Prasad, IITM Chennai, exploring the options of CFD Applications in Fluid Power. This was followed by technical lectures by Exxon Mobil explaining the case on Performance study of a Servo Valve Failure. We also had lectures on Contamination Control & Component Cleanliness. Taking Hydraulic sample is very important in many ways; this is explained by Mr. Hatt Harle from Beckman Coulter India and the session is ended with interesting lecture on “Achieving first -fill Oil Cleanliness”.

On the Second day, system design future is predicted by simulation using various software. Here we had Vincent, from Famic Technologies from Canada, delivered keynote address on “Machine Knowledge Software to help gaining insight and confidence on new technologies and their benefits”. This is followed by Mr. Venkateshwaran talking on “Hydraulic System Simulation to Enhance New Product Development”. We also had session on system integration with “Paradigm Shift in selection of Heat Exchanger”, “Pressure Impulse Testing of Hydraulic Elements for Airworthiness” and “Maintenance & Trouble Shooting in Power Packs”. We had topic on Virtual testing and verification using leading simulation software.

In the Afternoon session on the second day we covered the Disruptive Technologies of Fluid Power starting with Keynote speaker Mr. Prasanna Umarani, from Slimline Hydraotek Ltd, changing our perspective of Fluid Power by talking on “Water Hydraulics”. We had interesting session covering many topics like “Connected Hydraulics Beyond Limits”, IIoT Adoption in Fluid Power and Latest Trends in Industrial Automation, especially covering Pneumatics and getting the state-of-the-art buzz word of Manufacturing Industry “Realizing Industry 4.0””.

Dr S Prasanna Kumar, Chairman, Technical Committee on the concluding session remarked that the sessions exceeded the above predictions, with lively discussions by the delegates. He congratulated all the authors and announced that the proceedings will soon be uploaded on the website.