Fluid Power Journal

Watts It All About

Watts It All About with Dan Helgerson

Welcome to a fluid power blog focusing on best practices, energy efficiency, and safety. The goal is to stimulate (not simulate) thinking, share knowledge, and promote professionalism. We welcome your comments as we share ideas, yours and mine.

Dan-HelgersonDan Helgerson, CFPAI, CFPS, sits on the International Fluid Power Society Board of Directors as treasurer and is the technical editor for Fluid Power Journal. He can be reached at Dan@DanHelgerson.com

Visit his website at www.DanHelgerson.com

Transforming Our Thinking: What in the World is a VDT?

Ok, let me see a show of hands. How many of you are familiar with a turbocharger? Now keep the hands up so we can count. I see the NASCAR group is responding enthusiastically. Others seem to be a little hesitant. That’s ok. I will explain. A turbocharger is a device that is typically placed […]

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Then and Now: Looking Back/Forward 25 Years

By Dan Helgerson, CFPAI/AJPP, CFPS, CFPECS, CFPSD, CFPMT, CFPCC A careful look at the last 25 years in the fluid power industry reveals both exciting and distressing news. We tend to look at the ground immediately in front of us and seldom lift our eyes to the horizon to see what may lie ahead. We […]

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Transforming Our Thinking About: Energy Units and the Cost of Control

By Dan Helgerson, CFPAI/AJPP, CFPS, CFPECS, CFPSD, CFPMT, CFPCC I had a friend in college who lived in the city and was accustomed to driving aggressively in city traffic. He had been complaining about the fact that the brake pads on his car did not last very long and he thought the dealer might be […]

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Transforming Our Thinking About: Energy Units and Velocity

By Dan Helgerson, CFPAI/AJPP, CFPS, CFPECS, CFPSD, CFPMT, CFPCC In the previous article, “Transforming Our Thinking About: Energy Units,” the energy unit was described as the unit pressure x the unit volume. The 1 cm3 charged with 1 MPa would be 1 cm3/MPa. This is also the description of the Nm. It could consist of […]

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Transforming Our Thinking About: Energy Units

By Dan Helgerson, CFPAI/AJPP, CFPS, CFPECS, CFPSD, CFPMT, CFPCC We are taught to think of fluid power in terms of flow and pressure; flow is for velocity and pressure is for force. While this is true at the actuator (the motor or cylinder), the terminology may have limited us in our approach to energy transfer. […]

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Digital Displacement Pumps

By Dan Helgerson, CFPS, CFPAI, CFPJPP, CFPSD, CFPMT, Perisseuma Energy There seems to be a lot of excitement about the emerging technology surrounding the Digital Displacement® pumps (DDP) and motors (DDPM) developed and patented in 1994 by Stephen Salter, co-founder of Artemis Intelligent Power. It is time to be rethinking the way we transfer energy […]

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Download the Transforming Fluid Power PowerPoint

Click on the image below to download the PowerPoint presentation for Dan Helgerson’s “Transforming Fluid Power” series.  

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Transforming Applications

Fluid power has become a vital component in our ability to perform work: it harvests our crops, takes our waste to the landfill, moves the landing gear, entertains and protects us, and all with a power density and flexibility that is unmatched in any other power transfer system. However, when it comes to efficiency, fluid […]

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Transformation Complete

Fluid power has become a vital component in our ability to perform work: it harvests our crops, takes our waste to the landfill, moves the landing gear, entertains and protects us, and all with a power density and flexibility that is unmatched in any other power transfer system. However, when it comes to efficiency, fluid […]

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Divide and Conquer

Fluid power has become a vital component in our ability to perform work: it harvests our crops, takes our waste to the landfill, moves the landing gear, entertains and protects us, and all with a power density and flexibility that is unmatched in any other power transfer system. However, when it comes to efficiency, fluid […]

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