Jan Nilsson is Chairman of SFMA and was one of the participants in the webinar with Professor Perry Y. Li from the University of Minnesota, which gathered more than 50 participants.
– It feels good that there is such strong interest in new research findings within the Swedish hydraulics industry and that we in SFMA can help the industry develop in step with the latest research. The background to the webinar is that intensive R&D work is being carried out, both at universities and within companies around the world, focusing on how hydraulic systems can meet increasingly stringent environmental targets.
– An important part of the development toward those goals is to increase system efficiency in different ways. Perry Li, among other things, discussed “efficiency mapping,” which many are working with today. In broad terms, this is about finding the best possible combination of the diesel engine’s highest efficiency and the hydraulic machine’s highest efficiency, what is known as a “sweet spot.” What is new in his research is that he is looking at how a number of small electric motors can be placed inside the hydraulic system. One of the goals of this is to reduce the throttling losses that arise when there is only one larger motor driving the hydraulics.
Hybrid hydraulic electric actuator
Professor Li also presented a solution with a hybrid hydraulic electric actuator, HHEA, which Jan Nilsson found very interesting.
– Such a combination can reduce energy consumption by 68 percent in a small loader, which they have tested the HHEA on, and that is almost revolutionary. SFMA’s long-term work on knowledge sharing in the industry is to a large extent handled by the knowledge group.
– They are now working on a series of webinars, of which this was one example, that will be held during the coming year.
Accessible summaries from conferences
Another way of working with knowledge sharing is handled by SFMA’s research group, which passes on interesting information from various research conferences.
– During 2025, they wrote shorter summaries of lectures at the two major hydraulics conferences held in Sweden, in Linköping and Hudiksvall. Through such summaries, many more people in the Swedish hydraulics industry are given the opportunity to follow what is happening in the field of research in a more accessible way. We help them identify the most important points in the jungle of research and development results flowing from universities and larger companies. The next major conference they will attend and produce similar summaries from is the major conference in Aachen in March.
Conveying ideas for R&D projects
The work on knowledge sharing is not only about communicating information from ongoing research.
– We also want to know what type of research and/or development projects our members need in order to continue developing. That information is then passed on to the researchers. In that way, we increase the chances that the research carried out primarily at the universities in Linköping and Luleå concerns things that companies can benefit from directly. To identify company needs, SFMA will conduct a number of member interviews during 2026 and discuss what kind of research they are missing.
– It may be that they have a problem in hydraulics or electronics that they feel they do not really understand and would need help finding out more about. Researchers in Linköping and Luleå can then include that issue in their research projects. A great deal is happening in hydraulics right now, for example with the electrification of hydraulics, and in connection with that, new types of problems may arise.
– One example is that electric drive means high voltage in the system, which can give rise to current passing through components such as bearings. That can cause sparking, which in turn leads to increased wear. That phenomenon could be something researchers can explore in greater depth and see whether they can find solutions, Jan Nilsson concludes.
