In this episode of Unfiltered Flow ELSC, Meghann Cook and Allen Burdette sit down with Barun Acharya, Systems Application Engineering Manager at Parker-Hannifin. Barun shares his journey into the world of fluid power, discusses the trends and challenges in electrification, and explores the future of electro-hydraulics in mobile equipment. Tune in to discover how electrification is reshaping industries and the exciting innovations on the horizon.
Takeaways:
- Barun Acharya’s journey into fluid power began with a master’s degree in mechanical engineering at Oklahoma State University.
- Electrification of fluid power systems is a growing trend, though adoption has been slower than expected due to supply chain challenges.
- Efficiency and right-sizing are key focuses in the electrification of hydraulic systems, aiming to reduce inefficiencies and heat production.
- Government initiatives are driving the adoption of electrified fluid power solutions, particularly in ports and compact construction equipment.
- Battery technology is a critical component in electrification, with challenges in cost, weight, and thermal management.
- Simulation and energy mapping are essential in designing efficient hybrid and electric systems.
- Cross-functional expertise and pilot projects are recommended for OEMs and system designers to stay ahead in the transition to hybrid and electric options.
- The future of electro-hydraulics is bright, with a blend of electric and hydraulic systems becoming more common.
- Barun emphasizes the importance of communication skills in engineering, alongside technical expertise.
- The total cost of ownership and pilot projects are crucial in demonstrating the value of electrification to customers.
Transcript:
Meghann (00:01.337)
Hi everyone, welcome to Unfiltered Flow ELSC. I’m Meghann Cook here with Allen Burdette and today is our pleasure to have Mr. Barun Acharya from Parker-Hannifin. He is the Systems Application Engineering Manager. Welcome Barun
Barun Acharya (00:04.892)
No
Barun Acharya (00:16.452)
Thank you very much. Thank you, Meghann. Thank you, Allen.
Thank you.
Allen Burdette (00:22.776)
Pleasure to have you.
Meghann (00:22.915)
So, yeah, thank you so much. So my favorite question to ask, Barun, is how did you get into fluid power?
Barun Acharya (00:30.032)
So I did my, I came to US for my master’s from a grad school, just like many of the folks from India show up here. And I went to Oklahoma State University for my master’s in mechanical engineering. And they had a pretty good hydraulics class, which I didn’t know, but I attended one of them.
And from there, I got a job offer from Eaton Corporation. They had a plant in Shawnee, Oklahoma, and that’s kind of how the hydraulics stint started. Initially, I thought it was a Dutch field, but once you go into the hydraulics field, you know, it’s kind of like a quicksand. I think you just keep going deeper and deeper into it. So from there, I moved to…
to the headquarters of Eaton that was in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. So that’s where we did a lot of design work on hydraulic pumps, motors, all kinds of brakes and other components and also systems. And then from there, I moved to Parker Hannifin. Parker Hannifin mostly on design of components, pumps and hydrostats.
things like that, worked with Al on that. And then from there, moved, I’ve been with Parker ever since. From there, I moved to Chicago, that’s the headquarters for the systems team. And so I worked in the hydraulic systems for a while. And for the past seven years or around that time, I’ve been focused on electrification. So I saw the trend in electrification and I loved it. So I’ve been working on electrification since then.
Allen Burdette (02:26.005)
Okay. Can you tell us about some trends you’re seeing in electrification of fluid power systems by room?
Barun Acharya (02:33.336)
Yeah, so I would say electrification of a fluid power system, that is kind of the trend that’s involved lately. But recently, would say the rate of adoption of electrification or lack of adoption, I think I would say that kind of surprised a lot of people, including our team.
So things are going behind schedule from what we assume, but it doesn’t mean that it’s not going to happen. We think it’s just delayed by certain years, but it’s still happening. So electrification is for sure still in vogue with lot of people working on lot of inquiries. It’s just the high volume adoption hasn’t happened yet. Some of the challenges lately has been more on the
supply chain side as well, you know, with the tariffs, with the rare earth, you know, all kinds of issues there. But, you know, I’m sure we’re going to overcome all these challenges. And then beyond that would be seems like the efficiency has been the focus on electrification. And we are looking at holistically the
how to address the efficiency system with the electrification. So basically, the way I would answer it is, like, hydraulics is kind of the muscle or the brawn, if you would. With electrification, we’re giving it some of the brains, if you would, more finesse, and we are right-sizing the hydraulics.
you know, before the hydraulics was always oversized, in my opinion, for any application. Now we’re right sizing it. And then basically the idea is to make sure the yield is giving you, you with the less inefficiency, it’s giving you the useful work that you need. And then also creating less heat in the process, doing the right useful work. And then also the controls giving you the edge and helping the customer with a beautiful solution.
Barun Acharya (04:54.81)
That’s kind of the way I describe electrification.
Meghann (05:02.755)
What are the particular industries that are adopting the electrified fluid power solutions today?
Barun Acharya (05:11.438)
Yeah, so in our opinion, what we have seen is like a lot of it’s really the the government effort, you know, that’s kind of leading the the business case. And so many of the ports are kind of leading the activity. So whether you look at the seaports or airports, so there is all these initiatives by the different state and the federal government to eliminate pollution.
Those are the areas where we see the leading in terms of, and then besides that, would say terminal tractors would be one application that’s been going into electrification in terms of commercial usage. And also some small compact construction equipment would be the other one, I would say, that we have seen lot of adoption of.
of electrification, especially where the duty cycle is lower, the power requirements kind of on the lower side. That’s where we see the big adoption for the electrification and for hydraulic equipment or fluid power equipment.
Allen Burdette (06:29.165)
Along that line, without giving away any trade secrets or company secrets or anything, there a example of a project you could give us where electrification significantly improved the system?
Barun Acharya (06:46.008)
Yeah, so let’s talk about a couple of examples. So the first example would be, let’s talk about a small mini excavator, like a two ton, one and a half ton, or in that range. So in a typical mini excavator, you would have a big engine, and then you’re going to have two or three pumps tied to that. And then from the pumps, you’re going to have
hoses going everywhere to all the different actuators. So, that has been replaced by a more decentralized system where you replace the engine and the centralized pump with the E-pumps. So we have different architectures, two or three E-pumps, some tandem pumps, and then the valves are more on-off type valves. And then your E-pump is kind of producing the flow that you need. So basically what that does is,
Two things, you can use that mini excavator indoors where you cannot, before you couldn’t use with IC engine, you had to turn off the, you you couldn’t just use it. So now with the IC engine, that’s a big positive. And then the other thing is the noise. So if the customer, if the operator is using it all day long, they feel much more refreshed after using this. So those are the other benefits, if you would. So, but basically the idea is with a mini excavator,
you can see how the efficiency of the system grew from an IC engine versus electric system and also the controls, the controllability, things like that. The other example I would give is probably the bucket trucks. So this is the work truck industry. You see the bucket trucks, you know, working on the electric lines we have. So…
you know, there you have a e-power or e-pump system, if you would, that ties to the IC engine system. And you have an anti-idle system. You could turn off the engine and you can run the bucket and you can position your bucket much better. The person up in the bucket can talk to, you know, basically it’s a two team member, you know, so the person in the ground, can chat.
Barun Acharya (09:08.176)
just to talk normally and listen to each other. So much more safer system if you would and much more efficient system as well. So those are the two examples that comes to mind.
Allen Burdette (09:25.121)
Okay.
Meghann (09:25.901)
Barun, how are battery technologies influencing fluid power applications on the electrification side?
Barun Acharya (09:36.09)
Yeah, so battery to me is one of the key component. So if you look at the bill of material of electrified equipment and compare that with the IC engine machine, the cost of the battery, if it’s a fully electric machine is almost 80 % of the cost is from the battery. I mean, I’m making a generic example here, it depends obviously on the duty cycle and things like that.
But with that heavy a cost, so one is cost. And then the other point is the way to think about a battery is like a fuel tank, but it’s super heavy. And super heavy because the batteries are very heavy. So gravimetrically, not just volume wise, also weight wise, they are big negative. So you have to carry them around and that robs you from doing real work.
So that’s number one. then so cost, the heavy weight, and then the other piece is imagine a fuel tank, which you cannot even fill up very quickly is the other challenge. So you have to fill it up slowly. Unlike a fuel tank, I can fill it up in a few minutes. This takes overnight. And there are implications if you do fast charging, you have implications. So you have to make sure you slow down from a state of health perspective.
So battery is a key component. The other piece is you’ll have to also keep in mind the thermal management of the battery. The batteries don’t like to work at lower temperatures. So you have to keep that in mind, maintaining it between minus 20 or 60 degrees. And then also the rate of charge and discharge, they also change depending on the temperature. So thermal management becomes key. The controls becomes a key, how you…
how you charge it and discharge at what rates. So that’s why battery becomes a very, very critical component. There’s a lot of activity going on on the battery side. From at least the part that we are in, we are more users of battery. At Parker, we don’t make batteries. However, our group at Lorde, who do a lot of engineering materials groups, so they have
Barun Acharya (12:01.88)
lot of cool technology. They work with all battery manufacturers. So our goal from a systems engineering perspective is to work with the battery, work with customers in figuring out what is the right battery, the right battery chemistry and sizing the system, you know, based on the duty cycle and things like that.
Allen Burdette (12:25.997)
So that’s interesting because sort of leads into what I wanted to ask next and that’s when you look at a machine, how do you determine what functions you’re going to do hydraulically and what you’re going to do electrically? it just a duty cycle? Is it the amount of work that needs to be done? How do you decide which you’re going to do in what manner?
Barun Acharya (12:51.428)
Yeah, that’s a great question. mean, there is no generic solution Al So there is no one size fits all. So I mean, that’s the good news. That’s why we have a job and our team have a job. So we like it. So the way is you really have to understand the duty cycle of the application. So number one, as an application or a systems engineer, the way is you have to really truly understand
Allen Burdette (13:04.813)
Ha ha.
Barun Acharya (13:20.624)
what the application needs are, the duty cycle needs are, the power needs, there’s a burst of energy needs, and you have to map it. And you also need to know the edge cases because typically hydraulic application is not like a typical car we have. People drive 99 percentile falls into a certain category. Your roads are all paved and things like that. But for us in the off-highway applications,
they are all over the cases, you know? So it’s pretty nomadic in nature, you know, the duty cycle. So you have to truly understand the duty cycle, that’s number one. And number two is you have to map how the energy is used after that. So you have to figure out where the energy is going into which functions and how much of it is really converted into useful work. So this is what we call the energy mapping exercise, you know? So that’s the next step.
I think simulation plays another important role there, you know, where you have to figure out, have to simulate, you know, here is my existing state, here is my proposal, whether it’s an electric hybrid or fully electric solution. And then once you simulate that, then you can figure out in terms of sizing, and then you come up with different proposals if you would. But at a high level, that’s kind of the way we attack the problem.
And then of course the thermal management and then the solution. But I think the key point I would say is when you electrify, say imagine you have a off highway application, a customer comes to you. So, you we used to bucket the customers, know, step one would be eliminate the engine, just put an electric motor and a motor controller and off you go. So that’s, that would be my category of customer one.
And then after that, we know that’s not the right solution. The customer goes back and comes back. They’re like, oh my God, this is horrible. My battery barely lasts for so long, you know? So then we say, okay, then he’s like, you know, the customer’s like, okay, make me the most efficient system. So now we go in the other side. We over design, you every axis may have a, you know, electric motor drive, driving some pump or whatnot, you know, or electromechanical actuator.
Meghann (15:23.033)
You
Allen Burdette (15:27.757)
You
Barun Acharya (15:43.354)
But then it works really good and it does the job, but then they come back, the cost of the system is super high. So it’s the phase three when the customer comes to, that’s when I know they’re ready to go into production. So this is where you kind of balance the two and you have to figure out the total cost of ownership. So at the end of the day, that has to make sense. Otherwise it’s just an engineering exercise, a science experiment rather than a real.
commercial solution.
Meghann (16:20.855)
What do you think the future of electro-hydraulics looks like in mobile equipment and industrial automation, Barun?
Barun Acharya (16:29.264)
Yeah, so my, I mean, my domain is mostly off highway, just so you know, so I barely ever worked on industrial applications, so I wouldn’t go there. But I think the future is very bright, in my opinion. Like I said, electrification is gonna happen sooner or later. So I think what’s gonna happen is the line between electric and hydraulic is gonna get blurred.
as the time progresses. people are gonna, you know, it’s gonna be everywhere, you know, the combination of electric and hydraulics. We are gonna, you know, basically, so say for example, you know, back to my excavator example, you know, so you could imagine you have the bucket, the boom and the stick, you know, so.
those you may want to keep it hydraulics because you the hydraulic cylinder, the bucket shake, know, the amount of the shock loads and things like that. However, for swing that’s going to be that could be electromechanical and I could recover the energy back when I’m braking. So these are the kind of solutions that are going to be very common in my opinion and electric and hydraulics are going to work together.
The hydraulics components are going to be much more smarter. There’s going to be more sensors there, you know, so you can talk to it. It’s going to tell you how much usage you actually used, how long, how many hours, how the duty cycle profile was. It’s just because with electric, I already have built-in sensors. So it’s going to be just the data is available. So I think it’s going to be super exciting. And like I always tell our sales guy,
When we have electrification project, the objective is not just selling the electric components, it’s really selling the electric components and also redesigning the whole hydraulics. That’s the beauty, you know, to be honest at this time, you know, so right now in this era, you know, imagine, you know, when we, at least when I was young, you know, mean, hydraulics was kind of like a old, you know, mature field, you know, you go and talk to them about your component.
Allen Burdette (18:45.805)
you
Barun Acharya (18:50.626)
Now here you get to talk about electric, you got to talk about the hydraulic system, and you got to talk about controls. So you get to sell the whole system all over again. And to me, that’s the most exciting part. I don’t know if I answered it properly, but I just get excited about that.
Meghann (19:12.185)
you
Allen Burdette (19:14.953)
I can understand why. What should OEMs and system designers be thinking about now to stay ahead as we transition into these hybrid and electric options? mean, is it controls? Is it, I don’t know, AI? What is it?
Meghann (19:16.665)
Mm-hmm.
Barun Acharya (19:38.512)
Yeah, I think that’s a great point again. So to me, think one thing that I always notice, like when you go to a customer, you know, they have clearly defined people, you know, so they have hydraulic domain experts, you know, they have controls people, and then they may have now electric people, you know, like the power electronics guys, but they are all different people. So, you know, but I think that needs to be like more a cross-functional
They need to intermix. They need to know about each other’s domain. So to me, that’s probably the biggest thing I would do or I would recommend to them. And then I would also say, let’s make some pilot projects. Let’s create some electrified system, maybe hybrids, because hybrids probably make more sense in many of the equipment.
that we work on like off highway type applications and let’s learn from them. I think there is a lot of lessons to be learned when you do this pilot projects and then also use that as a training bed for the upcoming engineers and make them cross-functional domain experts, maybe focus on simulation because I think simulation has a lot to play just because the duty cycles are all over the place.
You don’t want to over design things because it’s very expensive. At a operations level, would say supply chain becomes critical. I would make sure the supply chain folks are up to the standard, you know, that can they can handle the, you know, the what’s coming. And then of course, controls is also the key. But again, that’s just another piece of that. So I think that’s what I would recommend at a high level.
what the customer should do. And then also I would say involve different people, involve suppliers and key suppliers. There’s a lot of knowledge out there and people would, this is the time to share, go to conferences and you can come up with some really good ideas and you can get the ROI very quickly in my opinion.
Meghann (22:04.473)
This leads into that, Barun but what do you see as the primary barriers for adoption among customers at this point? Cost, you’d mentioned there, knowledge, what do you see now?
Barun Acharya (22:25.316)
Yeah, think cost is, I would say is number one, you know. So it’s the sticker shock, you know. So when you look at a IC machine versus electric machine, when you have two to three X the price, the sticker shock is kind of a big deal in my opinion. So I think the customer needs to, I think we need to do a better job in.
Allen Burdette (22:38.121)
You
Barun Acharya (22:52.244)
in making the end user understand the value prop properly. So I think we need to help them identify that, in my opinion. I don’t think we do a very good job there. And then maybe focus more on the total cost of ownership. Just don’t look at the sticker price, the capex rather than the operating expenses as well. And then help the person understand, here’s the total value if you
You know, so to me, the TCO, the total cost of ownership becomes the key, the maintenance savings, things like that. And then maybe that’s why we have to create this pilot projects and we have to show it to them. So there is more, you know, more openness from the customer standpoint to adapt this solution, you know. And I think we also have to do like a scalable solution, you know, so.
Imagine, I think one of the challenges right now is you go to any customer or end user, they’re going to say, I have 90 % of my machines are going to be IC. Say 5 % or very small percentage is going to be EV or hybrid. So you want to make sure there is some sort of a continuity amongst the components they’re using as well. So I always say that maybe the solution would be you look at the 90 %
let’s make the hydraulic system similar to the other 10%. So it’s easier for them. So it’s a higher efficiency. Maybe the ROI doesn’t make too much sense from the IC engine, but when you look at the electric system where the batteries are 80 % of the BOM it totally makes sense there, you know? So there’s different ways to skin the cat, but I think you have to document it and you have to explain it to the customer, maybe capture all that data, show them how the person is using it.
It’s so much easier now to show if you have a electrified system, you know, how they are using the system, what’s the duty cycle, and, you know, and how they could do better.
Meghann (25:01.079)
Yeah, I think a portion of that too is probably training or retraining the sales force to be able to articulate that for the customer base.
Barun Acharya (25:09.892)
Yes, absolutely, absolutely.
Allen Burdette (25:17.483)
So having known you for a while as a hydraulics guy, I was a little surprised to see you go into the electrification slash hybrid role there at Parker. What drew you to that? Or were you just thrust into it? Or how did that work?
Barun Acharya (25:40.322)
Yeah, so, I mean, you know, I mean, my life was more about designing components, you know, so designing hydraulic components. And then once I went to the system side, that’s when I realized how inefficient the hydraulic systems are, to be honest. So I was like, I was like working all day.
Meghann (26:00.633)
Thanks
Allen Burdette (26:04.109)
We may have to cut that part.
Meghann (26:04.867)
We may have to that out.
Barun Acharya (26:05.296)
We were working all day and night to get 1 % volumetric efficiency and here they piss it all away. sorry. They just throw it all away. So I was like, what the heck is going on here? So anyway, that was my first thing. And then I saw, you know, like what kind of system gains have we made? You know, not much. It’s a very conservative hydraulic industry. You know, you all know.
It’s very conservative, you know? like the latest state of the art is a load sense system that was designed in the 80s. So that is state of the art for hydraulic system. Of course, I must say it’s very reliable, know, cost is low, but it’s very inefficient. So here was the, I mean, it’s not like the hydraulic systems guy. We don’t know how to make efficient system. Of course we do. We know how to make precise system, but the problem is it didn’t make sense before.
But with electrification, with the cost of the batteries, I thought here’s a chance to take this hydraulics industry to the next level. So that was kind of my reasoning why I thought, so I just couldn’t resist. This is ideal. And then I always loved the idea of the challenge, getting to know another domain and then where you can, so you can.
do the electric domain, the hydraulic domain, and the controls all together and come up with something much better. And that was just too exciting to let go, you know, so.
Allen Burdette (27:45.611)
Yeah, I imagine it was. I imagine it was, yeah.
Barun Acharya (27:45.816)
Just kidding.
Meghann (27:49.337)
Speaking of challenges, what’s the most interesting or challenging project you’ve worked on so far in this domain?
Barun Acharya (27:57.924)
I think the most challenging project was the one we worked together on the turf side, so that’s not an electrification project. So we’ll talk about that. That was the integrated hydrostatic transmission to me. Those were kind of my most challenging and most exciting days in my opinion, especially where it went after what we did.
Allen Burdette (28:07.757)
you
Barun Acharya (28:23.056)
But on the electrification side, I think the most challenging was during the COVID days. I worked on a project where we downsized, basically we made a hybrid backhoe loader. So we downsized the engine from 75 to 50 horsepower because at 50 horsepower, the tier regulations were much lower. That was the reasoning. And then instead of having a big battery, put a, we, we sized the battery, the right size.
and you could operate the backhoe loader indoors for 45 minutes. And so basically it’s a fully electric machine for 45 minutes. And then the system was below 96 volts. So we had to think about functional safety, know, security, you know, the safety side as well, and then do the controls. And this was a manual controls, a backhoe loader, you know, taking it to the next level with the…
Allen Burdette (29:20.941)
Mm-hmm.
Barun Acharya (29:21.56)
I mean, that was just super exciting and that kind of plus that kept me sane, you know, because I hate working from home. That made me come to my lab and work on the machine. So that was probably the best project on electrification that worked on. And we learned a lot together. We came up with adaptive controls. So and then we made this hybrid system, which is smart, you know, how the and then you charge the system, run the
engine at the sweet spot. So lot of learning. So that was beautiful.
Allen Burdette (29:56.384)
Yeah, that’s great. So if you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice when starting in this niche area you’re in now, I guess it’s OK to call it a niche area. What would that one piece of advice be you would give to yourself?
Barun Acharya (30:16.816)
I think it would be to learn as much as possible about the fundamentals. I wish I knew more about the, I still struggle with the electrical, the power electronics basics sometimes. So, and I’m trying to get better at it. And especially with AI, with chat, GPT and things like that, learning is so much easier now. So, but I think that kind of helping me.
But my recommendation to myself would be, you know, learn as much as possible about the different domains, not just mechanical, know, fluid power, electronics, controls, light controls, so many challenges, still learning a lot there. And then what else? I would say communication was the other key thing. It took me a while to figure out, you know, how you communicate, break it down into simple steps. You have to communicate it to your
to your boss, to your managers and the customers, you know, in a simple way. And that really sets you apart. Even if you’re a good engineer, have to be, if you’re good at communication as well, that sets you really apart from other people. I don’t know. I wish I would, I would also ask myself to buy Bitcoin 20 years back maybe.
Meghann (31:37.133)
you
Allen Burdette (31:38.933)
Wouldn’t we all?
Meghann (31:47.257)
Well, Barun, we appreciate your time. Thank you so much for taking time out to talk to us.
Barun Acharya (31:51.514)
Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure and it’s so great to see you, Al, and nice talking with you, Meghann. Thank you. Thank you, folks.
Allen Burdette (31:58.999)
Nice to see you again too.
Meghann (32:01.337)
Thank you.