Analysis of Pressure Losses in Conventional Hydraulic Manifolds Blocks. A Review

The hydraulic manifold blocks (HMB) are the main components of hydraulic systems. One main problem is the loss of hydraulic energy during operation, which might be as high as 50%. Another problem is the large weight. The scientific literature mentions two research pathways, to solve such issues. The first focuses on conventional HMB constructed by machining process, applied to different configurations. The second focuses on methods to reduce the weight and the energy loss by using additive manufacturing (AM) or laminated blocks (LB). This paper refers only to conventional HMB. The scientific literature usually uses Ansys to estimate the hydraulic energy losses and validates the findings by experiments. Results of significant investigations focusing on the 90º connections, expansion connections, contraction connections, offset connections of holes, V elbows with different angles are discussed in the present paper.