Abstract
Hydraulic excavators have been popular devices in construction fields because of their multi-workings and economic efficiency. The mathematical models of excavators have many nonlinearities because of opening characteristics and dead zone of main control valve(MCV), oil temperature variation, etc. The objective of this paper is to develop a simulator for hydraulic excavator using AMESim. Components and their circuits are expressed graphically. Also, parameters and nonlinear characteristics are considered in a text style. From the simulation results, fixed spring stiffness of MCV can not obtain the satisfactory accuracy of spool displacement under whole P-Q diagrams. Closed loop type MCV containing a proportional gain, is proposed in this paper that can reduce displacement error. The ability of closed loop MCV is verified through comparing with normal type MCV using AMESim simulator. The excavator simulator can be used to forecast the attachment behaviors when components, mechanical attachments and hydraulic circuits change, or other control algorithms are applied. The simulator could be a kind of development platform for new excavators.