The promises and problems of electrohydraulics

Engineers acknowledge that electrohydraulics are the way of the future for the off-highway industry and that the field itself could use a good public-relations campaign to attract more engineering students.

While manufacturers scramble to maximize the potential of electrohydraulic systems, end users remain for the most part blissfully unaware of the engineering behind the modern hydraulics on their equipment.

Larry Lorimor is a hydraulics engineering manager at Caterpillar. “My number one assignment is to develop new hydraulic components and systems, put them into production, and then provide ongoing product and manufacturing support,” he said. “Forty years ago we all had clutches and stick-shift transmissions. Shifting was not smooth at all. That was the mechanical world. Then we moved to automatic transmissions. Even though they were automatic, you could still feel every shift. The beauty of today's electronically controlled transmissions is that the shifts are almost imperceptible.”